Wildlife out our window

Fourteen!

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Today was a deceptive day. Beautifully bright and sunny – and colder than forecast! As I write this, we have warmed up to -19C/-2F – with a wind chill of -30C/-22F.

Oh, look at that. We’re supposed to warm up a few more degrees, but as I typed the above sentence, my weather app’s desktop icon just dropped to -20C/-4F, with a wind chill of -32C/-26F

We’re supposed to warm up over the next few days, until we reach above freezing, where we are supposed to stay for almost a week before dropping a couple of degrees below freezing again. Considering how off the forecasts have been, with the cold hanging on longer and colder than predicted, I’m not holding my breath.

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to going out today.

The outside cats were happy to see me. Or at least the fresh kibble I brought out for them! Even the kibble in the sun room was all gone. As cold as it got, the outside heated water bowl still had liquid water, and not even a layer of ice over the top. I’m not sure if that means it started working again, or if there was simply enough water in it to keep it from freezing over.

I left really early to go to my mother’s, giving myself time to shovel away the small snow drift that formed overnight, in front of the garage doors where her car is parked. I wanted to make sure to get to the post office before it closed for a couple of hours for lunch, as my daughter got notice that a parcel was delivered.

It wasn’t there.

Then I went to my mother’s town with plans to get some gas and pick up some take out chicken and wedges for lunch. Had a small heart attack when I saw the gas prices had gone up another 10 cents per litre, to 174.9. That works out to Cdn$6.63 per US gallon, or US$5.21 at today’s exchange rate.

Ouch.

My mother doesn’t do meat on Fridays for Lent, so we shared the potato wedges for lunch, and she saved her chicken for tomorrow. I gave up most social media for Lent, which is a heck of a lot harder for me than giving up meat!

With the lockdowns, a lot of the social activities my mother so loved about where she lived had ended, but after a while, people started just making their own coffee nights in the lounge on their own. Which may be why events are starting up again. (We’re supposed to open up completely in a few days, but the powers that be are already talking about locking down and imposing restrictions again.) Today, the social workers from the senior’s centre were going door to door (happily, I didn’t see a single mask in my mother’s building. What a relief that was!), letting people know there would be coffee and cake in the lounge this afternoon. My mother was quite excited about it, so we headed out as soon as we finished lunch. Once her errands were done and her groceries put away, it was early enough that she still had time to watch Mass on TV before her coffee date, so I didn’t stay very long. She was in very good spirits, and was even moving around better on her bum knee than I’ve seen in a while. So that was encouraging.

This meant I was on my way home a lot earlier than I expected, giving me time for a quick stop at the post office/general store again, to pick up more deer feed. A full bag is more than fits in the bin we use for the deer/bird feed, so I put an extra bucket of feed out. I’d startled a deer in the yard when I got home, so I figured it wouldn’t be long before I saw one or two out the window once inside.

It was more than one or two! We had five of them out there, in no time at all!

After taking a few pictures, I sat at my computer to upload them when my daughter called out, asking me if I saw the seven deer outside the window.

Seven? No I hadn’t! So I grabbed my phone to get some pictures and…

There was a LOT more than seven.

Where did they all come from?

This is our fifth winter here. The most deer we’ve ever seen outside our window at one time has been seven. Today, we counted at least fourteen!

I’m guessing some of them came from my brother’s farm, across the road, as he puts a bale out for them. He’s had as many as 30, during some really severe winters. I’ve driven by and seen as many as eight that I could count while driving. But fourteen? Wow! The down side of that is, the coyotes start coming in, and he’s seen them take down a deer, right by his house.

I only scoop out enough feed to fill a 1 gallon container at a time. That’s barely a snack for the few deer that usually show up, minus what the birds manage to eat. I’m not sure how this tiny bit we put out has managed to lure so many deer!

We are definitely going to have to take this into account when we plant our berry bushes this spring. The buggers are doing a number on the chokecherry and Saskatoon bushes we found between the spruces near the feeding station, after cutting away some self-sown elm and maple, and the invasion of spirea. They never went for the spirea twigs and branches. Berry bushes must taste better!

Once we start cutting down all the dead spruces, that whole area is going to open up quite a bit. We want to get rid of all the spirea in there, allow the wild roses and red osier dogwood take over as undergrowth, reduce the chokecherries, and increase the Saskatoons. We also intend to plant fruit trees that require more protection from the winds in there. It’ll all be a waste, if the deer just come in and eat them! We’ll have to figure out the best way to protect things, while still following our plants to turn some of the tree stumps into benches, seats and tables. My long term goal is to create a little park-like sanctuary in the area behind the stone cross, surrounded by rose bushes and dogwood, and whatever wildflowers re-emerge once things are cleared out and the ground starts getting more sunlight again.

So… deer, racoons, groundhogs, squirrels and birds are all critters we’ll have to take into account. Probably black bears, too. They haven’t shown up in our yard, but one of my neighbors about a mile away from us had them raiding and destroying his bird feeders all last summer. With the drought, they were pretty desperate for food.

More reason to plant forage trees, well away from the house. Near the newly dug out gravel pit, which should be able to hold a lot of water for a much longer time now, would probably be a good place. If they have enough food and water elsewhere, they won’t have reason to come close to were people are.

Much to think about and plan around!

The Re-Farmer

Deer visitor, and seedling status

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I guess I was just too disruptive this morning, because I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the outside cats! We’re expecting another warm day, so I wanted to make sure the sidewalk was scraped and cleared, so the concrete can warm up in the sun and melt away any remaining ice and snow.

The deer didn’t seem to mind! I saw a group of three, before I headed out, then my husband saw the usual pair, before the piebald finally came around. We are definitely seeing a lot more deer lately, all over. Sadly, that also means we’re seeing more on the side of the highways, that had been hit by cars. I’ve lost count of how many bald eagles I’ve seen, scavenging the carcasses. I’ve never seen as many bald eagles as I have this year – and it’s only the beginning of March!

While checking and tending our seedlings, I was happy to see the 4 new Canteen gourd seedlings are growing very quickly. I had been wondering about the on luffa that started to sprout, but hasn’t gotten any bigger, so when I had the chance, I checked it out.

Oh. This would be why it’s not growing.

That little bit of seedling had been right against the side of the pot, but when I touched the leaves, it fell right out.

So far, there’s just the one luffa seedling we have, which seems to be surviving the cat damage all right. I’m not as sure about the one Canteen gourd in that tray, but with that one, we at least have 4 new sprouts. Aside from the one seedling that did not succeed, there is no sign of more luffa germinating. We still have luffa seeds, so I’m thinking of adding more to the pots to try again.

The seedlings in the mini-greenhouse seem to be struggling, and not just the ones with cat damage. I suspect part of the problem is that we have to keep the plastic cover on it, to keep the cats out. I’ve put the little fan we’ve got, inside the mini-greenhouse, so there is at least going to be air circulation. They may be getting over watered, too. We’ll have to watch out for that.

In other things, I got word from the garage about my mother’s car. It’s ready to be picked up. He checked it over, reset the codes and found nothing wrong with it. Most likely, the check engine light and codes were triggered by changing out the battery. Which is a relief to hear, but I still don’t know what made that “pop” noise when the car died! We’ll head in this afternoon to pick it up and hopefully, I’ll have a chance to talk to him about it.

It’ll be good to have the car issues over and done with for a while!

The Re-Farmer

Hard Crab Apple Cider follow up – I am the queen of procrastination!

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We’ve had a busy day outside our living room window!

We’ve had quite a few deer visiting the feeding station, and just plain hanging out. The piebald has been standing around the old junk pile (maybe we should start calling it something else, since we cleared out the junk and there’s just old stacked boards now), chillin’ for at least a couple of hours. Others have just been wandering around the area, sometimes at the feeding station, sometimes nibbling lilac twigs, sometimes among the spruces, nibbling whatever underbrush they happen to be next to.

Keith had front row seating to watch them all, with his ever tragic expression!

Now that Saffron is gone, other cats have been sitting on the warm light fixture over the seedlings. Especially Fenrir and, pictured above, Beep Beep.

It must feel nice on their still nekkid bellies!

Today, I finally got around to sterilizing bottles and equipment, and bottling the second carboy of hard crab apple sider.

The one I meant to bottle months ago!

The other other we had fermenting was bottled back in August. If you follow that link, the post has links to the whole process of making it, starting from when we picked the apples back in September, of 2020. We had no apples in 2021, so no new crab apple brews of any kind, sadly.

So… yeah. This carboy has been fermenting since September of 2020.

When the other carboy was bottled, we didn’t do a hydrometer reading, so I did that from the last bottle we’ve got of it, while preparing to bottle the second batch.

I really hate doing hydrometer readings. I can’t read the tiny numbers and have to take pictures to be able to see them – but the camera does NOT want to focus on the hydrometer.

Anyhow.

After – hopefully – reading the hydrometer right, the ABV calculator I’ve got came to 10.5% Alcohol By Volume.

For the second carboy, I did a reading before starting to bottle, and the calculation came to 11.8% Alcohol By Volume.

Not too shabby!

The jug we’re using as the carboy after racking the initial brew was repurposed from a 3L wine bottle. I was able to fill three 750L bottles, plus a 250ml bottle, before it was down to the dregs.

Of course, we had to do a taste test to compare the two.

The first thing you’ll notice in the pictures, is that the cider I was about to bottle is a darker colour compared to the one already bottled.

The previously bottled cider had a strong, almost bitter, taste to it. It tasted stronger of alcohol, too, though it had a lower percentage.

The newly bottled cider had a fruitier, smoother taste.

Both tasted good, but I prefer the one that stayed in the carboy for 1 1/2 years. That extra 7 months seems to have made a positive difference.

I do hope we have crab apples this year. I look forward to making this again!

The Re-Farmer

Kibble thief!

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We had a pretty good notion that deer were finishing off the water in the heated water bowl. Sometimes, all the kibble would be cleaned out, and we were pretty sure a skunk has been coming by. They don’t completely hibernate in winter, and I’ve seen a big on on the security camera live fed, every now and then.

While in the kitchen, I noticed the piebald deer standing in one of the cat paths, in front of the house. The other two deer were at the feeding station. The piebald usually drives them off, but when she disappeared, but the two were still at the feeding station, I looked around to see where she went.

No, it wasn’t the compost pile, as I’d expected.

She was in the kibble house!!

My daughter was able to sneak quietly into the sun room and get a bunch of photos.

Even Tuxedo Mask seems to be wondering what the heck it going on!

What a thief!

The Re-Farmer

Looks like good news this morning

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I heard back from our mechanic today.

First thing is that it looks like my mother’s car simply needs a new battery. !! He has no idea what made that “POP” noise I heard; possibly a backfire, though it didn’t sound at all like a backfire to me. He put in another battery and it’s running fine. A new one has been ordered and we should be able to pick it up tomorrow. A battery is much more affordable than I feared!

While we are there to get my mother’s car, he will check the belt and tensioner on our van. He said the tensioner did seem kind of finicky when they worked on it. I’ll talk to him about our wipers and the issues with the EGR valve when we are there tomorrow. With spring coming, we just can’t be without working windshield wipers!

We ran out of deer feed yesterday, so after taking care of the outside cats, I made a quick run to the local general store. I’ve got the onboard computer display on my van set to display voltage all the time, now. When I started the engine, it was at 12.2 volts or so, but very quickly went up to 14.3 volts, where it stayed. I kept the music off, but I did turn on the rear defogger, and it still held.

The trip is just 3 miles. I spent maybe 5 minutes – definitely less than 10 – inside, but when I started the engine, the display read 11.1 volts! It quickly went up to 14.4, but before I even drove my first mile, it dropped to 14.0 volts and stayed there – and I didn’t have anything but lights and heat running.

I look forward to getting that checked tomorrow!

Meanwhile…

… the outside cats are doing just fine. No signs of fighting this morning.

And I am amused by the one-eyed smiley face on the heated water bowl!

After I got back with the deer feed, I grabbed a couple of containers to put feed out for the birds and the deer – double what I usually do, because the entire bag doesn’t quite fit into the storage bin we transfer it to! 😀 When I came around the corner of the house, our usual two deer ran off – then stopped and watched me through the trees. Once I started heading away from the feeding station, they both came running, not even waiting for me to be completely gone.

They know who brings their treats!

I tried to spread the seeds out more, so they’re not fighting over one little spot, but… they seem to like to eat together out of one little spot! 😀

While checking out the deer through the window, I was enchanted by a rolling ball of fluff.

David is so adorable. When he sees us, he twists his head upside down, makes cutesy faces at us and start rolling around and twisting himself into a pretzel, to get us to pay attention to him.

It works, every time!

The Re-Farmer

We lucked out

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The predicted blizzard conditions we were getting warnings about, passed well to the south of us. Once it swept down from the mountains and across Alberta, the system made its way mostly along the Canada/US border.

I guess there are some advantages to being further north!

What we did get was wind.

And deer.

Five of them!

The two in front are our usual visitors. The three in back are new ones. As least, that we’ve seen. For all I know, they visit when we’re not around to see them.

Unfortunately, the three visitors decided the chokecherry and saskatoon twigs were delicious!

After I took the video, I turned the living room light on, so they could see me, then waved my arms around like a fool. The two regulars ignored me, but the ones eating the twigs went away. And that’s all I wanted!

The two regulars came back later.

They were digging down really deep into the snow, to try and find more seeds!

This is what the area looked like this morning, after I put more seeds out.

That deep hole is almost completely filled in, and the snow is hard packed, from the high winds.

This wasn’t the only area blown over. I actually had to push my way through a drift, just to get outside!

It even drifted into the kibble house, though the cats did a good job of flattening it.

Check out the heated water bowl!

After knocking the snow out of the kibble trays and putting food out, I dug out the water bowls, knocking a thick layer off the top of the heated bowl. There was still water in it, though it was lot enough the cats would have had difficulty reaching it through that hole.

I ended up letting Potato Beetle out of the sun room this morning. He’d trashed a few things, trying to get out. He’s not injured anymore, and the only reason we were keeping him in was to prevent other cats from attacking him again. He was happy to be out, and hopefully, he will manage to keep away from whichever cats have been aggressive towards him.

Once the sun room door was open, though, Agnoos, Tuxedo Mask and Chadiccus were right in there! So I left the power bar on, for the light, heat bulb and the other heated water bowl, and left the doors open. When I was done and ready to come inside, I left the doors open just a little bit, so the cats can go in and out. I think there might have been four in there, at the time. We’ve since spotted Tuxedo Mask through the bathroom window, in his favourite spot on top of the board the heat bulb’s fixture is attached to, and under the light. The plan is to close the sun room all up again, after we go out and shovel out at least some of the paths – the wind chill is still pretty extreme right now – but we might have difficulties getting the cats out when we do! 😀

The Re-Farmer

ps: Just for fun, I compiled some short videos I got of the piebald deer, a few days ago. Turn your sound up, and you’ll hear the purring and chomping noises from Susan, who kept trying to eat my phone while I was taking video!!

Brrr…

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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. 😀

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.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

Another hit of snow

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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! 😀

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! 😀

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.

It’s a good day to hunker down, that’s for sure.

The Re-Farmer

Being watched!

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Before heading outside to do my morning rounds, I could see we had a deer at the feeding station outside our living room window, digging around in the snow, looking for seeds. I could also see another deer through our kitchen window, just outside the chain link fence into the inner yard, nuzzling around the snow, looking for something.

I’m not sure what. It was standing were we unload the van, now that we can’t drive into the yard, but we didn’t drop anything there.

I expected to spook it away when I came out to feed the critters. Which I did – but not as much as usual!

The deer ran into the yard through the vehicle gate, then followed the shovelled path the back of the garage, then up to the compost pile.

It was a very casual sort of run.

I did find it amusing, how dedicated it was in following the shoveled paths, instead of running straight through the yard!

The shoveled path turns towards the house from the compost pile, but the deer just stopped and stayed there.

Watching me, as I took care of the cats’ food and water. Even when I walked across to the kibble tray under the shrine, it stayed, watching me!

It wasn’t until I came towards it, carrying the container of feed, that it and the other deer ran into the bushes.

Well. More like a fast walk than a run.

Then they watched from from the trees for a while, as I went around the house. They did take off before I reached the feeding station and scattered the feed, but I didn’t see them actually leave the yard. Usually, they take off running, jump the fence, then cross to my younger brother’s property, across the road.

These two are definitely getting used to my moving around the yard a lot more!

The cats were happy for a kibble top up. 🙂

Butterscotch and Nozencrantz continue their recovery in the sun room. They got treated with a can of wet cat food for breakfast. They definitely like shredded better than pate! 😀

Both are more active, and Beep Beep even made like she was interested in going back outside which, of course, I discouraged! They seem to still be okay with staying in the sun room by themselves as they recover.

When I heard from the cat lady today, one of the things she mentioned was dropping off our cat carrier, that was used for Cabbages, at the shelter in town. When my husband also let me know that a package he was expecting was in, we took advantage of the situation and made the Chinese food order we meant to do a few days ago! You know. Since I was going to be in town, anyway… 😉

As I started heading out with the van, just turning onto the road from our driveway, a warning light turned on that I’d never seen before. Then the onboard computer started showing a message to check our brakes system.

!!!

When I took the van to get the oil changes yesterday, they checked some other stuff and gave me a list of things to get looked at. One of them was the brake fluid. Apparently, it’s dirty.

Now, suddenly, I’m getting warning lights?

Hmm.

Thankfully, we have my mother’s car as a back up! I parked the van and used my mothers car to go into town.

We’ll be using my mother’s car until we can get the van looked at. Brakes is one thing I don’t want to mess with!

I was very happy not to have to cancel the food order we’d just made! It’s been probably a year since we’ve ordered take out, and my goodness we were craving food we haven’t cooked ourselves!

When I finally got there, the owner even commented, “long time no see!” 😀 We have never ordered often, but when we do, it’s a large order. Enough to feed us for a few days, and almost all meat items. We can do rice, noodles or vegetables ourselves, but we can’t recreate their protein dishes at home! It’s enough for them to remember me, even after such a long time!

The nice thing about having to use my mother’s car is, it has butt warmers in the front seats. I was able to use it to help keep the food warm while I went hunting for the animal shelter. It’s in an industrial park, next to a small airport, that I haven’t driven around in for more than 20 years and, even then, I hadn’t gone to that particular area since I was an Air Cadet while in high school! I drove past it three times before I finally saw it. Mostly because the snow around the building was undisturbed. Clearly, no activity is happening around it. Around the back was a cleared parking area, next to the back door and a donation box, which is where the carrier was supposed to be left. The building itself was closed; a sign on the door said it was open by appointment only.

!!

The carrier wasn’t there, though, and there was no signs in the snow showing that anyone else had been there. It turned out the cat lady hadn’t made it yet, having had to make an unplanned trip to another town to pick up another frozen cat.

No complaints from me, that’s for sure!

It’ll be waiting for us at the vet clinic, when we bring Beep Beep and Fenrir in to get spayed.

So we didn’t get the carrier, but we did get Chinese food!

I’m happy with that. 🙂

Thankfully, we don’t need to go anywhere else again, until we bring the cats in to the vet. It’s supposed to start snowing tonight, and keep snowing all through tomorrow, for a total of 6-10cm/2-4in. Then we’re supposed to warm right up, with a high of -4C/25F on Monday, when we bring the cats to the vet, then +1C/34F the day after!

With more snow.

Because, of course. 😀

The Re-Farmer

The derpiest derp, and call update

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Well, I’m happy to say that at least my court conference call was over with quickly!

I already knew it was just to be rescheduled, but the last time I had to do one of these, I was on the phone for nearly 2 hours before they got to my file. That was with criminal court, which is provincial, and they are incredibly busy. This was for civil court, which is federal, and there was only maybe 2 other files being addressed at the same time. I never heard how many exactly, because our vandal’s file was the first one called. We got a new date – in April – and that was it. We were done.

This suddenly freed up my morning, so I decided to do the Walmart part of our monthly shopping. We were running low in cat kibble again – I don’t think we’ve ever gone through so much in one month, since we’ve lived here! Mostly with the outside cats. Yes, we’re feeding 20 cats out there, but we’ve had about that many in previous winters, too, and they were much harsher. Interestingly, while we have never had so many cats inside before, they aren’t going through anywhere near as much food. At least with the dry kibble. The inside cats get wet cat food once a day, too, and there’s definitely more of that! 😀

As I was getting ready to head out, I spotted our regular pair of deer outside the window, digging an ever deeper hole in the snow, where the seeds are scattered. I quickly took a couple of pictures with my phone, but it wasn’t until I uploaded them that I realized I hit the jackpot.

I love catching the deer in the middle of making funny faces, but this one is easily the derpiest of derpy faces, I have ever caught!

Isn’t that just priceless? 😀 Even with the poor quality (my phone is terrible for zoom), I love it!

The Re-Farmer