Holidays

What do you mean, it’s only six o’clock?

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

It’s been a looong day today!

At least I thought it was, until I finally sat down and looked at the time. It’s pitch black out, and I was expecting to see something close to 9pm, but nope. It was barely past 6.

I am looking forward to when the days start getting longer again!

Of course, the day started with feeding the critters. Tuxedo Mask and Agnoos’ water bowl was frozen over, and they were very happy to have a warm water top-up! Agnoos, however, wanted to go outside. Tuxedo Mask wasn’t going for the door, so I let Agnoos out for a bit. He immediately ran onto a pile of snow from shoveling paths, hunkered down and stared at me. :-D

He did eventually come back to join the others. :-D

Including Chadicous, trying to trip me, as usual.

After the critters were fed, I made a quick run to the post office; I had to wait long enough to give them a chance to sort through the new mail, but I also wanted to get there before they closed for lunch, because I really didn’t feel like going out again when they reopened at 2! My husband is expecting the paperwork from his insurance company that he has to fill out every year, to let them know that yup, he’s still broken. At least he no longer has to get a doctor to sign off on it anymore, once it was obvious his disability had become permanent. He just has to let them know that yes, he is still under a doctor’s care. Which is getting harder to do, since it’s all phone appointments now, and he hasn’t even been able to get his bloodwork done. A few times we’ve tried, he had to turn around and leave before he ever reached the reception desk, due to pain, because of the long line up caused by restrictions. When he finally was able to get to the desk, he turned out to be missing his health card and, even though they knew who he was, they couldn’t do his bloodwork. Mostly, though, he’s just been in too much pain to make the trip to the lab.

The paperwork from the insurance company wasn’t in, but we did have a few packages. One of them was a couple of small ceramic heaters for the girls to use in their “apartment” upstairs, which gets so incredibly cold in the winter. The heater we got for them a couple of years ago had given up the ghost. This time, instead of one heater they had to move from their bedroom at night, to their studio during the day, they’ll be able to have one for each room.

I got a lovely surprise package in the mail.

It was my prize for scoring so high on my firearms safety exam! A lovely hoodie, with a pouch style pocket in the front, and our instructor’s logos on the front and back.

I had to giggle at the sleeve, though! Too funny!

After I got home from the post office, I did the rest of my morning rounds. Mostly. It was so cold, I didn’t bother trying to switch out the memory card on the sign cam. The LED screen inside doesn’t work when it’s cold like this, so I would have no idea if the micro-disc card was seated properly, or if it wanted me to format it again. I can sometimes get it to work if I warm it up with my hands, but I really didn’t want to stand in the wind for that long. I did the gate cam, which doesn’t freeze up like the newer one, but the card kept erroring out. I think moisture got into it at some point, and the contacts are damaged, because it works again when I take the card out and re-seat it, pressing it in hard. This time, it just did NOT want to read that card! I finally got it working, but by then, my finger tips were dangerously cold. This is not something that can be done with gloves on.

Meanwhile, my younger brother’s dog had come over for a visit. It’s been a while, and I was happy to see him. The cats, however, were not at all happy with the big, shaggy beast that kept wanting to play!

It did give me an opportunity to get a photo of Cabbages, sitting above dog height. Her eye has cleared up nicely though, as you can see, it’s still leaking quite a bit. There is no sign of redness anymore.

I’m seeing the forecast for Sunday is now up to 2C/36F! The cats will really appreciate the warmth. Today is supposed to be the last chilly day, and then it’s supposed to stay above -10C/14F, for a week, and even when the temperatures start dropping again, they’re still expected to be above -20C/-4F. Even the expected lows aren’t going to be much different. The cats will like that. And so will we, when our Starlink system comes in. Apparently, it’s going to be delivered by FedEx tomorrow! It was originally supposed to come by mail. It would be too dangerous to try and access the roof right now, even if it’s just the edge of the much lower sun room roof, so we might have to wait a few days. This is a bad time of year for it to come in! Which is okay; saving a couple hundred dollars a month will be worth it – if it works! Since it’s hard to tell which satellite dish is for the primary account, and which is for the secondary, we decided we will simply suspend both accounts (there’s just a $25/month fee per account that way) while we make sure the Starlink is working. If it does, we’ll close both of our current accounts and return their routers. If it doesn’t, we’ll put back whichever of the dishes we take down (we should be able to use either of the existing supports for the Starlink dish) and reactivate the accounts.

With the running around this morning, it was a while before I could snag a daughter and do Tuxedo Mask’s eye. The sun room is chilly enough that his other eye has started to leak a bit! I’d gone into the sun room ahead of my daughter to snag Tuxedo Mask and found him in his spot under the heat bulb, looking out the window.

Agnoos was outside the window, looking back at him, his front paws on the glass! He saw me and started bobbing his head around, looking into the sun room. So I went and opened the inner door. As soon as he heard it, he came running. When I opened the outer door, he slithered under it and into the sun room before I could open it all the way!

I think Tuxedo Mask was quite happy to see his brother, and they both wanted all kinds of cuddles!

The only problem is their new habit of sitting on the board the heat bulb fixture is attached to and hanging down from. It’s a good thing we can see into there from the bathroom window, because I discovered it knocked off its support. I set it back up and secured it with a small Bungee cord, but in having to keep it well away from the fixture, it would still slide around when they jumped off. When I had the chance, I put pieces of rigid insulation we have from a cat condo we made with cardboard boxes, a couple of winters ago, to make walls around the bottom of the mini-greenhouse frame I’m using the hold the heat bulb. They won’t be able to see out the window from there anymore, but it’ll be warmer. I cut a piece of insulation into two, to put on the shelf that’s supporting the board the heat bulb is on, one on each side of the board, in such a way that they will stabilize the board and also give the cats more space to sit on and look out the window, while acting as a roof to help keep them a little bit warmer under there. Between that and the box nest, they’ll be nice and toasty, even as the temperatures drop.

My husband, meanwhile, cut holes in the sides of the boxes the packages came in, to give to the cats to play in. Which I did not appreciate, since I was in the middle of cleaning at the time. He dropped them in the space I had just opened up in front of where the Christmas tree will be hung! LOL

They were, however, perfect for the sun room.

The brothers were quick to explore one of them! :-D

My big job for the day was to get things ready for decorations. Normally, we would at least have the tree up by now, and have started decorating, but this year, the only thing we’ve got set up in the Advent wreath! I decided to shift some furniture around, after vacuuming the living room carpet. While moving smaller things aside, I got distracted by the cat scratcher. It’s just a post on a base. The post originally was wrapped in carpet, but when that got torn off, my husband got some sisal rope to wrap it in. It has since been re-wrapped a few times, but the cord keeps sliding to the bottom when the cats use it. Today, I decided to save our furniture a bit and fix it, using adhesive all over the post. That took a while, but I think it was worth it. It should no longer slide down! However, the adhesive needs 24 hours to cure, so I had to hide it away until tomorrow.

That distraction meant it was a while before I could finally start vacuuming – only to discover the beater brush on our new vacuum cleaner isn’t working! Everything else was working fine, though. I figure the belt broke, but would have to take it apart to see. I decided to just use it as it was and leave dismantling the base for another time. It meant having to run it back and forth a lot more often. With our 1970’s shag carpet, it wasn’t going to be a good cleaning at all, but I’d at least be able to get some of the cat hair off the top. LOL

Not only did this end up taking a lot longer than normal, but as soon as I started, my rotator cuff in my right shoulder decided to let me know it was injured. Except I haven’t injured it. I have no idea why it was hurting! So on top of having to take extra long to vacuum the carpet with (I’m assuming) a broken belt, but I had to do most of it using only the one arm.

Oh, and move furniture, too. Not much, mind you, but enough to make things even more “fun”.

The most frustrating thing was pausing half way through the vacuuming and using this opportunity to take out a power bar with an extremely long cord my husband got a while back. There are not enough outlets in this house, and the one that’s being used to light the aquarium greenhouse is the only one on that side of the living room, and has only one working plug. So for my husband to have a light on his desk, where he does his leather work, he had to use the only other available outlet, which is on the opposite wall from the aquarium greenhouse. He picked up one of those big power bars that has three rows of plugs, facing different directions, plus USB ports. It had a cord long enough to run behind the piano and the large aquarium greenhouse to the corner of the room, then behind the small aquarium greenhouse, a plant table, the TV and DVD shelf, to the outlet in the opposite corner.

It was very handy, until it stopped working.

Then it started working again.

Then it stopped working for good.

So today, I pulled out the cord, starting at the plug end by the TV, only to get hung up at the corner where the aquarium greenhouses are, fought with it for a while, eventually having to pull the cord through the cabinet the large aquarium sits on, before freeing it from whatever it was caught on in the corner and finally being able to pull it from the other side of the piano.

Which is when I made a discovery.

It was two power bars.

Yeah. I know. You’re not supposed to plug a power bar into a power bar.

The big one that I thought all that cord was attached to did have a longer than usual cord but, somewhere behind the piano, it was plugged into a regular sized power bar with a super long cord.

Once I got them both out, I tested them.

They both worked just fine.

What I think happened is that the cats stepped on the switch on the bar behind the piano, turning it off. So when we tested the outlet and it was working fine, we figured something had gone wrong with the power bar. We were confused when it suddenly started working again, and now I figure a cat must have stepped on the switch again, turning the smaller power bar on again, only to have them turn it off again later. With it working sporadically, we tucked it to one side, figuring maybe a cat had peed on it or something.

Nope. It most likely had just been turned off in a place I didn’t even know existed until I fought with the darn thing for nearly an hour.

So frustrating.

Anyhow.

While working on the living room, furniture got shifted so I could fit the extra chairs from the dining room and store the bins for our Christmas decorations out of the way. Then, when I had the chance, I put large cup hooks in strategic places along the walls the power bar cords had run along before, well above the floor, attached the big power bar to the wall above the work desk, then set up the one with the super long cord, running it from hook to hook behind the piano, aquariums, TV, etc. and plugged it in.

My husband can now have a light at his work desk again.

And you know what?

That thing is juuuust long enough that there is no need to use the big power bar.

Oh, sure, we won’t be able to plug in USB cables to charge phones, but that just means we can set the big power bar up somewhere else, if we want to.

No more power bar plugged into a power bar.

With all that finally done, I was able to prep the space in front of the dining room door, where we will be hanging the Christmas tree, flat against the door and high enough off the floor that the cats won’t get at it. That worked very well, last year!

By the time that was all done, I was completely wiped out. So was my younger daughter, who baked three double batches of bread and buns while I was doing this. My older daughter was working on her quick commissions. A couple of times a year, she opens a limited number of slots for relatively simple commissions, for a quick turnaround time at discounted rates, skipping the usual back and forth for details. She has a lot of repeat customers that wait for these to get digital art as gifts, so the slots fill up fast. Which means she has a whole list of commissions to get done in a very short time. She worked all day, but when she came down to start another pot of tea, she told me she had just realized she’d a mistake on a commission. Instead of being done for the day, she was going to have to go back to work.

Well, at least she’s warm while working, thanks to the heaters that arrived today. In the summer, she had to work at night because it was too hot for electronics during the day, but now it’s so cold up there, they both have had to bundle up in blankets at their desks, and the cold was even affecting her drawing hand.

Tomorrow, we should be able to set up the tree and start decorating for Christmas!

The Re-Farmer

Spice Cake for St. Nicholas Day

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

December 6 is St. Nicholas Day, and one of the Polish customs is to make spice cookies or cake on this day.

I didn’t feel like fussing with cookies, so I went hunting for a spice cake recipe with ingredients I already had.

More or less.

The recipe I settled on is here; Piernik – Polish Spice Cake.

The link should open in a new tab, so you won’t lose your place here. :-) Also, the photo at the link is completely different from what the recipe results in!

Of course, I had to do some modifications, so here, I will talk about what I changed.

In the ingredients:

It called for 1 cup of dark honey. I didn’t have dark honey. In fact, I didn’t even have a cup of liquid honey. What I had was some of my cousin’s creamed honey. I have no doubt using it will change a few things, from the colour to the moisture to the flavour, but I don’t expect them to be a big deal, and considering how my cousin makes his creamed honey, with a hint of maple syrup, I expect tasty results.

The next change was the 8oz, or 2 sticks, of unsalted butter.

I honestly don’t get the “sticks” of butter thing. I mean, yeah, I do see them in the stores, but my goodness, it costs more to buy butter in sticks than in pounds.

One stick equals a quarter pound of butter, or half a cup, so the recipe is calling for a cup of unsalted butter.

I don’t have unsalted butter. Just salted butter.

Usually, when I see a recipe that calls for unsalted butter, and I use salted butter, I would reduce the amount of salt elsewhere in the recipe.

This recipe doesn’t call for salt at all.

I’m not concerned. A touch of salt can wake up sweet things, and for the amount of salt in the batter, with no other salt in the recipe, we’re not going to have a salty cake or anything.

We were pretty much out of ground cloves, so for the 1 tsp in the recipe, about 3/4 of it was from whole cloves I ground in a coffee grinder.

The recipe also called for dark brown sugar. We have just plain brown sugar, or “golden” sugar.

The instructions mentioned beating mixtures at low speed, so it assumed an electric mixer would be used, but I didn’t want to fuss with it and did it by hand.

The instructions said to pour the batter into prepared loaf pans and bake at 350F for 45-55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out pretty much clean. All ovens are different, so I set the timer to 50 minutes, then checked it with a steel chopstick. Because of course, I don’t have toothpicks.

It came out with batter stuck to it, so I added 10 minutes, then tested again.

Then I added another 10 minutes and tested again.

Then I added another 5 minutes and tested again!

Finally, the chopstick came out clean!

I don’t know why this took so much longer to bake than the recipe stated. Going from 45-50 minutes to 75 minutes can’t be completely put to differences in ovens. Whatever the reason, if you try this recipe, make sure to do the toothpick test (or chopstick, as the case may be) to ensure it’s done!

Doesn’t that look pretty? And the smell while baking was wonderful.

After letting it cool, I just had to taste test it for this post. :-D

As far as texture goes, it’s more “banana bread” than “cake”. It has a slightly crisp crust outside, with a lightly dense, spongey inside. The combination did make it a bit harder to cut! :-D

While sweet, is it nowhere near as sweet as I expected it to be! Not with so much sugar and honey in it. Using the salted butter was fine; there was no noticeable salty taste. I also don’t really notice a coffee taste, either, even though there was quite a bit of strong coffee in there. All the flavours blended together quite nicely, and no one flavour stands out more than the others. I found spreading a little bit of butter on my slice brought out the flavours, more.

It’s also drier than I would expect either a cake or most quick breads to be, though it is definitely moist.

From what I’ve read in other recipes, they can become moister with time.

I don’t expect these to last long enough for us to find out. :-D

The Re-Farmer

A Crespo surprise

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day, but we are having our big dinner today. My mother loves her turkey dinner, so I will be bringing her some tomorrow, while my brother visits with her today. Right now, the turkey is in the oven, as are most of the potatoes that were harvested yesterday, so I can take a break to post about our Thanksgiving garden surprise. :-)

Last night, as we headed outside before the light faded completely, I took my daughters over to see how quickly the Crespo squash is growing. In the process, we discovered a hidden squash!

Hidden Crespo squash

It had been hidden by leaves until now!

I came back this morning to get a photo, but of course my phone’s camera decided to focus on everything but the squash itself! :-D

This is easily the biggest of all the Crespo squash we have developing. This is the only pumpkin type of squash we’ve got this year, so it seemed appropriate to find this on Thanksgiving weekend.

I didn’t get any photos, but the Ozark Nest Egg gourd is also showing us surprises. There are SO many female flowers showing up, with their little gourds at their bases, and it even looks like quite a lot of them got pollinated! A few have wizened away, but more seem to be making it.

If the weather can just hang in there! I’m now seeing overnight lows of 2C/36F by Friday, with rain at the same time. The squash and gourds seem to actually like these cooler temperatures, and are producing like crazy, but I doubt any of these will survive such lows, even without frost. We shall see. It would be so awesome if they managed to mature! For that, though, I think we’ll need mild temperatures through half of November, too. Which does happen. It’s whether or not we get frost that will make the difference.

That we haven’t had frost yet is something to be thankful for, this Thanksgiving weekend!

Just in case I’m not able to post tomorrow, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

The Re-Farmer

Happy Easter!

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

I hope that your day was full of joy and blessings.

Our favourite tradition is our Easter basket.

The traditional items include bread (I made a challah this year), eggs (half were pickled, half were coloured with beet juice), ham, sausage, cheese (goat cheese with herbs this year), horseradish (we purchased a spread this year, as our ground it still too frozen to dig up fresh roots), butter and salt. In place of the traditional bacon, we twisted prosciutto rosettes. Among the non-traditional items, we have mustard, olive oil, wine vinegar and olives (almond stuffed, this year). Other items that some people like to include are wine, grapes or an apple, a bottle of wine, or a single white candle. Every item has symbolic meaning. It’s not in the photo, but the basket was covered with a hand embroidered linen cloth; a small table cloth, stitched and gifted to me by my godmother, many years ago. I have a small collection of hand embroidered linens that I like to use to cover our baskets. Lots of people cover their baskets with crocheted lace doilies.

Typically, the basket would be taken to church for blessing on Holy Saturday (as my mother was able to do), but we blessed it ourselves again, this year. I’ve seen people with very elaborate baskets, with added decorations on the basket itself, along with sprigs of flowers, greenery or pussy willow branches. I’ve also seen baskets as simple and elegant as a loaf of rye bread in a small basket covered with a cloth napkin.

The basket contents make up our Easter brunch.

It was wonderful.

Happy Easter!

The Re-Farmer

Happy Three King’s Day, and digging out the fire pit

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Happy Three King’s Day! Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, which is our last day of Christmas. After today, we start taking down our decorations. :-)

It was another mild day today, so when I finished my rounds this morning, I decided to go ahead and dig out the fire pit.

I considered breaking out Spewie, our little electric snow blower, but for the amount of snow we have, I figured it would be easier to just shovel it!

I shoved the snow off what I’m using for a cover, but didn’t bother moving it, yet.

On our warm days, the snow melted enough to create a layer of ice on the surface of the picnic table. We’ll be staying at these mild temperatures for a while, so now that it’s uncovered it should melt away on its own.

I cleared a path to the organized wood pile. That cover did not need to have snow removed from it. I didn’t bother shoveling to the big pile of branches. The little pile has kindling and should be enough for our needs. We may not use the fire pit at all, but at least now we have the option! :-)

I made sure to dig the path to the fire pit wide enough for my husband’s walker, should he feel well enough to join us if we do a cookout.

I was being watched the whole time!

You can see the cats’ favorite way to get under the storage house. The path that goes around the back branches off to a partially broken window they also like to use, as well as through the trees to the path they’ve made to the storage building outside the yard. Well worn little footy paths in the snow! :-)

I also had to dig a wider path around the kibble house. There is a lot of overhang on the roof that is working quite well for the cats, but not so well for a human with a walker! :-D

While clearing around the cat shelter and kibble house, I found this.

It’s a frozen little cat treat! :-D Next to the slab of ice that slid off the “porch” roof of the cat shelter.

Rolando Moon looks like she’s thinking of that delicious frozen treat! :-D

So we will now be able to easily get at the fire pit if we feel like having a cook out, or just a nice fire. I still like the idea of using a fire to thaw the ground out, so we can set up the fire pit grill my brother and his wife got for us!

We do have the BBQ they have us, and the propane tanks does have fuel in it, but I am much more interested in the fire pit, instead! :-D

In other things, I was able to get through to the clinic to make an appointment with my doctor about my breathing issues. After hearing the messages about restrictions before it ever got to a human, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make an appointment at all. The messages say nothing about medical exemptions to mask wearing, of course. Which sucks, since not being able to breathe properly is why I need to see a doctor in the first place. I was able to make a telephone appointment for Friday afternoon, and then it will be up to my doctor to decide if I should come in or not. I made an appointment for my daughter for right after mine, so when he’s done with me, I can just hand the phone over to her. This is the first doctor’s appointment either of our daughters have had since we moved. After seeing how difficult it has been for my husband and I to get good medical care, they have developed a strong distrust of doctors. I can’t say I blame them, either.

But that is done. We shall see what the doctor has to say when the time comes. I am not expecting much of anything, to be honest. No one is getting real health care right now, and our premier has just put us under another 30 days of house arrest, even has many of our politicians have been caught ignoring those restrictions and have gone traveling to tropical places, visiting with their friends and family, and then pretending to be sorry after getting caught.

Thankfully, we are out here in the boonies, and I get to focus on more pleasant things. Right now, I’m working on a project to help me be organized about our gardening, including keeping track of what seeds to start indoors and when.

More to come on that, later! :-)

The Re-Farmer

A Pretty Surprise Gift

/ Re-Farmer / 13 Comments

Yesterday, I made a quick trip out to deliver some turkey dinner to my mother. She tried to tell me I didn’t need to, but when I mentioned potatoes and gravy, she couldn’t hide how excited she was. :-D

It was just a quick stop, as she met me at the side door of her building, but she had a surprise for me, as well. It seems lots of people have been giving her sweet food gifts – far more than she can (or should!) eat. While the tin of shortbread cookies I gave her will keep well (I told her to have them with tea, when her lonely neighbour sneaks over for a visit), but some needs to be eaten more quickly.

So she gave me a bag with a box of chocolates someone had given her to take home. It wasn’t until then that I saw that these were a type I’d never seen before!

The writing on the package was in Polish!

Thankfully, the pictures that showed what the different chocolates were, had both Polish and English, though some of the translations still didn’t tell us what they were. At least, I hope not. I’ve never heard of avocado as a chocolate filling before…

I’m willing to try it, though!

My daughter picked up two 5 pound boxes of “ugly” chocolate from Purdy’s this year, so we won’t to into this box until those are done. :-D

I got a call from my sister this morning, letting me know that my mother wasn’t feeling well, so I called my mother to check on her. She was feeling pain in her bones, having trouble moving, but also stomach discomfort. So far, we’re not looking to take her to the hospital or anything; something she does not want to do again. She must have been feeling better by the time I called, though, because she began to lecture me on my gravy in the dinner I brought for her. Last year, she complained that I included “so much” bacon, which clearly meant we eat massive amounts of bacon, all the time (I’d included, at most, 2 slices from what I put on top of the turkey before roasting it). So I skipped the bacon completely this time. Now she’s complaining that the gravy is white instead of brown, and that I should have browned the flour first, but clearly I didn’t and just wanted to do things the “easy” way, and so on. I told her it was done exactly the same way as I did it last year, and turkey gravy is a white gravy. Because it’s turkey. But no. Gravy is supposed to be brown. It tastes better when it’s brown. Then she talked about how she learned to brown the flour in a pan, first, from her mother and describing how she did it. I told her I knew how to do it, because I’d learned how from watching her when I was a child. I just don’t do it. She sounded surprised by that. She always sounds so surprised that I know how to cook – even as I give her meals that I’ve cooked!

So… I figure she can’t be feeling too ill if she has that much energy to complain about the colour of the gravy that came with the Christmas dinner I brought for her.

*sigh*

Well, we shall see how she feels as the day goes on.

Meanwhile, she was kind enough to give us these beautiful chocolates from Poland that she didn’t want. Which I don’t mind at all! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Yeah, I’m a suck for the kitties!

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

As I write this, we have warmed up to -26C/-14.8F, with a wind chill of -30C/-22F It’ll keep warming up for the next couple of days, and tomorrow – Christmas Day – is now expected to reach a balmy -5C/23F!

When I headed out this morning to tend the critters (I have been skipping most of my rounds outside right now!), I was surprised to find no kitties in the cat house, though a couple were outside. I know they had been in the shelter last night, as I went out to give them a treat. We set our turkey to brine overnight, and I cut up the organs, neck and excess skin as a treat for them. All of which was frozen solid. It doesn’t look like any of the cats braved the cold for the treat at all! In fact, most of the kibble was untouched. I do put some just inside the door of the cat house, and most of that was gone, but I think it’s just too cold. Even dry kibble freezes and can be harder to eat, I think.

As I was putting out fresh warm water and topping up the kibble with some that wasn’t frozen, I could hear a plaintive meowing. I spotted Nosy, out by the storage house, tucked under a lilac bush. He is normally a quiet kitty, but this morning, he was just looking at me pathetically and complaining.

So, I shoveled a path for him.

There was already a slight path in the snow, showing where they had been leaping through the snow to get to and from the shelters. They were very happy to not have to do that anymore! You can see that Nosy immediately took advantage of the situation to get to the food, no longer complaining. :-) Even Ginger was happy for the path. :-D

There were plenty of deer tracks in the snow around the house, including here, where you can see they were trying to get at the ornamental apples. These apples are smaller than cherries, but food is food! The snow at the feeding station was well trampled and dug up, as both deer and birds tried to get at the buried feed.

Now that the critters are fed, it’s time to get to work for our non-traditional Wigilia feast tonight.

Just in case I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow, I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. May you all be warm and cozy, and your days filled with joy and blessings. May the new year bring you peace, good health and abundance!

Wszystkiego Najlepszego
image source

From the Re-Farmer family to yours!

Christmas tree do-over

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

We tried to be creative with the Christmas tree, with so many kittens in the house. The older cats are not as much of a concern, but the little ones are another story!

Well, after several days of cat caused disasters, today I came into the dining room to find they’d trashed the tree. For the past few morning, I’d come out and find the tree skirt askew, ornaments on the floor, and branches bent. Clearly, they knew enough to wait until we were in bed to wreck havoc. However, this time, they’d gone in while we were all busy and done even more damage than what I’d already fixed in the morning. The tree was tied to the wall, so they couldn’t knock it over, but they clearly were climbing it as high as the ceiling, and trying to get into the shelves beside it, as even things from there were on floor. Nothing fragile, thankfully, but still…

After finding the last mess, I gave up.

I took the tree down completely – which only took a few minutes, considering we’d already decorated it sparsely.

My older daughter, who lent us her little tree to begin with, saved the day.

It turns out this tree can be flattened, without damaging it. She found a way to hang it flat against the door, then redecorated it.

She even used wrapping paper to hide the base, where the legs would normally be attached.

I think it looks even better now!

Later, I actually caught some cats under it, looking up forlornly.

The little monsters!

The Re-Farmer

Well, it’s up and done!

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The Christmas tree is decorated as much as it’s going to be, and the base is covered.

Theoretically, the cats can still get inside the planter stand near the floor, but now that the stand it stabilized, it should be okay if they do. The tree skirt will hopefully be too “in the way” for them to want to jump up the stand anymore. Hopefully, they won’t try to climb it, instead!

Tonight will be the big test. While we are all in bed, will the cats leave it alone?

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

I went for it!

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So with the destructiveness of the cats, we had pretty much decided not to have a tree, but to decorate in other ways, instead.

But I still wanted a tree.

This morning, I went ahead and started working on it.

I ended up screwing small cup hooks into a wall and a shelf, then used some paracord to hold the plant stand we’ve got under the tree.

After I spent time fixing the bent branches on the tree. I didn’t have much luck straightening the “trunk”, though.

For the ornaments, I focused on the smelly ones! We didn’t bother bringing up all our decorations, but the bin the garlands and advent wreath were in, had a couple of boxes of ornaments in it that I picked through.

Here is as far as I’ve gotten, so far.

The little embroidered “pillows” at the top are scented. The rest have all sorts of dried spices on them. Of course, the dehydrated orange slices, with their dusting of ground spices, are there as well. The only non-smelly things on there are the birds I’m using as tree toppers.

I was then left with a mystery.

What did I do with the dehydrated orange slice decorations I didn’t dust with spices? I had to put them where the cats wouldn’t get at them, but there are only so many places that could be!

I just spent the last hour, trying to figure it out, but it wasn’t until I started writing this that I finally remembered. I’d hung them on a stick, then hung the stick up, out of reach of the kitties.

Once I’m done this post, I’ll go finish decorating! :-D

So far, while the cats were VERY interested while I was putting on the lights and garlands, they have not been going for the tree.

When it’s done, I will hopefully have the base and paracord covered in such a way that it will discourage the cats from trying to jump up into it. I might be able to use our tree skirt, after all!

Which me luck!! :-D

The Re-Farmer