Not even a glorious sunrise quite makes up for having to be heading out so early, on icy roads.
But it was worth it.
I just spent the day at one of the nearby towns, and am proud to say that I have officially passed my non-restricted firearms safety course; an early Christmas present from my husband!
I just have to mail in the form to get my license, which might take a few weeks, or a few months, to get processed and mailed to me.
Once I get that, I can legally buy any hunting-type long rifle or shotgun.
Now, I learned how to shoot as a child, and a lot of the rules we have now didn’t exist back then. There wasn’t much I had to “unlearn”, though. With the written test, I only got one answer wrong, and it was a silly one. It was a true/false shotgun question, and I am only slightly more familiar with them than I am with a muzzle loader! :-D I’ll be getting a prize in the mail, though!
The practical part of the test had me handling weapon types I’d only ever seen in movies until today. Thankfully, being unfamiliar with a weapon did not generally result in lost points.
One thing I found interesting, particularly as someone who lives in the boonies; as long as we meet some pretty basic, common sense safety precautions, we’re pretty much wild west out here. Especially if there is a concern about wild animals in the area. While the list of restricted weapons and ammunition is longer here in Canada, and pretty stupid (some are banned basically because they look scary, and there’s even an air rifle that reaches only 350fps that’s banned. My crossbow does over 400fps!), thanks to the gun registry being rightfully thrown out, as long as we’ve got our license and keep it up to date, there are not a lot of restrictions.
Granted, we don’t have the budget to actually buy a rifle any time soon, but once I get the license, at least it will be an option. We also want the girls to take the course, too, though for the cost, it would be just one at a time. Which is fine. As long as I’m not the only one in the household with the license.
I am quite happy. It was worth it, and allows us to eventually get one more type of tool needed for living out here.
On a completely different note, today is the first Sunday of Advent, and while I was gone, the girls were kind enough to bring the bins of Christmas stuff up from the basement. Time to start some cat-proof decorating! :-D
Oh, and on another completely different note, and one that I was actually kind of expecting.
I got an email from our vandal’s lawyer, rather late on Friday, wanting to talk to me on the phone. Sure enough, our vandal did NOT agree to the conditions, so we do not have our Peace Bond against him. His lawyer will call me on Monday (tomorrow) to tell me what happened, and to talk next steps. I expect he will suggest mediation, which is where our vandal and I sit down with a third party, who tries to get us to work something out. Which I would be willing to do, if we were dealing with someone rational, but we’re dealing with someone who can’t accept responsibility for his actions, things everything is everyone else’s fault, and believes he’s entitled not only to what’s on the farm, but to have complete access to everything here, any time he wishes, as if we weren’t living here – except that I’m supposed to invite him in for tea after he verbally abuses me and vandalizes stuff. So I don’t see that mediation would be of any use. Which would mean going to trial, and the earliest court dates that are being booked are a year from now.
Well, we’ll see what happens when I talk to the lawyer on Monday.
*sigh*
At least as long as this drags through the courts, our vandal is behaving and leaving us alone, even if he does sometimes still phone my mother and leave nasty messages about how horrible we are. Ah, well. It is what it is. We just go along the best we can, while this drags on!
We used a house brand, cranberry raspberry cocktail for the base, which also contained other types of juice in it. The predominant flavour was actually apple.
The juice and ginger bug mixture stayed at room temperature in a plastic bottle for a week. Every day, we would give the bottle a squeeze to see if it was getting harder, which would show that fermentation was happening and gases were starting to expand. Then one morning, I walked past and saw the bottle looking like it was about to tip over! The bottle was rock hard, and the indented base had been pushed outwards under the pressure, causing it start tipping!
I immediately put it in the fridge to stop the fermentation process, but not before I opened the bottle enough to relieve some of the pressure!
When we taste tested it the next day, there was quite a bit of pressure release when I opened the jug, but in pouring it out, there was surprisingly little fizz. It’s more like a barely noticeable effervescence, with a light tingle on the tongue.
Honestly, it really just tastes like juice. None of us noticed much of a ginger flavour in there, and the predominant flavour is still apple. I found it very sweet, so when I had another glass the next day, I watered it down, about 50/50. I found it to be nicer that way.
In researching how to make this, one of the things I’d read was that, after moving it to the fridge, it needed to be drunk within a few weeks, because it loses its fizz. So far, that has not been true! Every time I’ve taken the bottle out, it’s been rock hard again, and there’s no lessening on the sound of gas being released when it’s opened!
As for the glass in the photo, I admit, this is an adulterated drink. I poured it over quite a bit of ice, rather than watering it down.
The ginger bug drink is very sweet, while the hard crab apple cider is a bit on the sour side, and the two balance each other out quite nicely.
I now have a new bottle of cranberry raspberry cocktail mixed with the ginger bug starter. That’s the last of the juice I got for this. I think next time, we’ll try making a fruit syrup out of what we’ve got in the freezer and see how that works out!
With our temperatures hovering around freezing, we’re getting things melting in some areas, and freezing in others.
Which leaves us with this, in front of the sun room. :-D
We have one of those extended pole shovels designed to remove snow from a roof while standing at ground level, and I used it to try and clear the heaviest snow where the two roof sections come together. Like an idiot, I didn’t take the ice pillar out, first. It fell against the window. Thankfully, the window didn’t break! These are dual pane windows, and the pane on the inside is already cracked, so if the outer pane got broken, we’d be in a pickle!
The other downspouts seem to be clear, but this is the only south facing one, so it gets the most temperature fluctuations, and it feels like it’s solid ice, all the way to the eaves! Trickles do make their way through, but that’s about it.
While doing my rounds, I tried to see if we’d lost any more trees in the spruce grove. I didn’t see any newly fallen trees, but it looks like one of them – a live one, not one of the dead ones – lost about 15 feet off the top. It’s in an area that’s hard to get to even in the summer. With this much snow on the ground, it’s completely inaccessible right now.
Not so much the other piece of tree I discovered on the ground.
I was able to make my way over to the broken canopy tent. From a distance, I could see movement under it, showing that that cats are still able to use it for shelter, so it’s going to stay for the winter. This piece of tree looks like it landed on the corner of the tent and broke it even more. I can’t check on the BBQ under it. At this end, it has a shelf with a handle. There are S hooks on the handle for BBQ tools, and you can see one of them on the ground. Hopefully, it just got knocked about, and not damaged.
This is where it fell from. If I remember correctly, this was not a dead part of the tree, either. This is a group of three very large maples, and they do have a lot of dead sections that we would have to hire someone to safely remove.
Eventually, we will clear a path to the nearby fire pit and might be able to, at most, cut up and clear it away the broken piece or, at least, just move it aside so we can access the area.
There are still quite a few areas we can’t get at, with some we won’t even try to until the snow is gone, but in those that I can actually see, the broken branches we found before, plus what I saw today, are the extent of the storm damage. With all the dead branches we’ve been cleaning up these past four years, there are very few smaller branches on the ground that we’ll clean up when the snow it gone, but that seems to be leaving the really big things to fall!
Oh, it was so nice to see how the driveway looked in daylight!
There is more than enough room to back out of the garage and turn around – and even room for other cars to pull in and park. So awesome!
Though we do still have a bit of clearing to do in front of the garage. It’s just a small job, now!
This picture is taken from the road. Even the cats are loving the lovely, snow free driveway!
The road has been partially plowed. It looks like someone went through with a plow attachment on their truck or something similar. When the municipal plows come through, the clear from ditch to ditch, and there’s room enough for 2 vehicles to pass each other.
Notice the pole of snow pushed into the ditch? Because he cleared so far on that side of the driveway, when the plow does go by, we won’t have a ridge running across the end of our driveway!
I was able to make my way to this fallen branch. You can see where it broke off, above. I was not able to move it. Not only is it really heavy, but it’s frozen to the ground!
While making my way to switch out memory cards on the trail cams, I cold see where the deer are passing through, too.
As expected, there wasn’t much on the trail cams. It was funny to see some of the files from the camera by the new sign. The snow covered the camera lens before the motion sensor covered it, so they were basically just out of focus snow.
Though there is more shoveling to do, especially in the inner yard, I think I’m going to have to leave it to the girls today. My body is definitely telling me I need to take a break! Time to pain killer up and go for a nap!
Okay, they’re actually my brother’s renters, but you know what I mean.
I messaged them asking if I could hire someone to clear our driveway some time this weekend.
Someone came over, tonight!
Isn’t that a thing of beauty?
There was so much snow, he actually had to push some of it almost past the pump shack.
Would you just look at that? Wide enough for two vehicles! And room enough to back out of the garage and turn. I tried to get some more photos, but they didn’t work out. It’ll have to wait until daylight. I don’t think the road has been plowed yet, either.
Tractors are wonderful things. Especially tractors with front end loaders!
Afterwards, I sent another message to ask how much was owed, but she didn’t know. Her husband had gone to bed without saying anything about it.
What makes this even more awesome is that they lost power during the blizzard, and didn’t get it back again until shortly before I first messaged about the driveway. They went 36 hours without power! Yes, they have generators, thankfully. I can’t imagine running an operation as big as theirs on generators for very long!
They are so awesome!!! With just one pass, he did more than I was able to do in hours! I’m just thrilled.
Oh, I remembered to bring that lock from the gate in to take a closer look. I couldn’t see what I saw before, so I got the key and tried it.
It went in just fine.
Either I goofed completely and the lock was just frozen or something, or whatever was in it fell out while I was carrying it.
Today, we started digging out from yesterday’s blizzard.
We didn’t finish, but progress was made.
My husband was a sweetheart and did the cats’ food and water this morning. He shouldn’t have, but did have to dig his way to the kibble house and uncover a couple of water bowls. He slogged his way to the kibble tray under the shrine.
Knowing him, he was probably wearing his sandals while he was out there! LOL
There is a set of stairs to the main entry over under that snow. Good thing we are using the sun room doors! The cat path is pretty funny.
I shovelled my way to the stairs before I stopped, then slogged my way around the corner to grab the 100 ft extension cords, then went to the garage.
I am not standing in a drift, here. The snow is up to my knees.
I shoveled in front of the garage enough to open the doors to where little Spewie is stored.
This little thing is not made for a job as big as this! The expeller was barely higher than the snow!
Seeing the photo, I am noticing the knob at the end of the handle to rotate the expeller. I wish I’d noticed it earlier. The bottom of my parka kept getting caught on it, and the knob end fell right off! I did eventually get a chance to look closer, and it just needed to be screwed back on.
At this point, I paused to add the second 100 ft extension cord.
As you can see, there is a lot of water under that snow! As light as little Spewie is, the wet made it very difficult to push it forward, and my footing was precarious.
Here, the snow was above my knees.
You can see in this photo, that the knob end had fallen off by this time.
Guess who finally reached the gate, only to discover they’d forgotten the key? LOL
At least the walk back would be much easier!
Along the way, I also paused to knock the snow and ice off the trail cam, though I didn’t switch out the memory cards, yet. I haven’t even tried to reach the one by the new sign – a sign, and camera, I’m sure is now plastered with a layer of snow and ice, too!
Once I got the key, I discovered another problem.
I couldn’t get it into the lock.
No, it was not because of ice.
There seems to be a piece of metal jammed in there!
Off hand, I’d think it was our vandal, but there were no tracks in the snow. The last time we opened the lock was Wednesday morning, 2 days ago. We did get a prescription delivery early that evening. My daughter met the driver at the gate, since I was up to my elbows in flour, but never had to unlock the gate.
Well, maybe we’ll see something in our trail cam, before it got covered with snow, when I switch the memory cards out tomorrow.
I had to cut the lock off to open the gate, and continue on to the road.
Once that first pass was made as far as the road, the rest went a bit easier. Going back and forth, I could only clear a few inches wider each time, because of how deep it was.
The road has not been plowed yet. Which means we’re going to have a ridge of snow across the end, soon! LOL
I cleared it just wide enough to drive though. Barely.
But I wasn’t able to finish in front of the garage. We can’t back the van out, yet, and where my mother’s car is, we can’t even open the doors, yet.
In one of the photos, you can see the path my daughters shoveled. They also shoveled paths to the burn barrel, the meter on the power pole, and even to the pump shack. There was concern that a cat was in the pump shack and was snowed in. We kept hearing plaintive meowing, but couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. There is a hole in the bottom of the pump shack door that smaller cats go in and out of that they cleared, just in case.
They also shoveled the sidewalk, around the kibble house, and to the kibble tray under the shrine. You can see that snow even got into the kibble house! A garden hoe turned out to be the perfect tool to clear that out. It was remarkably hard packed.
After they did the shoveling, they made supper and, by the time I came in, there was food and a fresh pot of hot tea waiting for me!
I really needed it, by then. While it was almost too warm for how bundled up I was, I was very wet. My boots were soaked and, even though I had a pair of those foot warmer things, my toes were starting to feel frozen. Plus, while clearing beyond the gate, the wind was blowing the snow all over me, so even my parka was wet by the time I was done. Of course, my double layer of pants were wet to my knees, too. We will have to finish tomorrow.
One of the last things the girls did before heading in was go around to some of the lilacs and knock off the snow, so they wouldn’t break under the weight. Some things, however, were already broken.
One large branch along the south fence line near the driveway was visible from the garage security camera, so I was expecting that one. It turned out to be the top of a dead tree. Another large piece of dead tree fell right on the barbed wire, but we haven’t been able to get at it, yet.
Nor have we been able to get at the large branch that fell in front of the outhouse. I’m sure there are other fallen branches around, but we haven’t even tried to make our way through the snow to check, yet.
Tomorrow, we will need to get back at it. At the very least, we need to clear enough to be able to back the van out of the garage and turn towards the road. We also need to clear enough of the yard that we have room to drive up to the house, with room to turn around.
This is one of those days were I really wish our vandal had returned the Bobcat, as my mother repeatedly requested. This could all have been finished, including the yard, in less than an hour with that thing. I was out there for more than three hours. I’m seriously considering contacting our renter and seeing if we can hire them to come over with their tractor! I’m sure we could find somewhere to squeeze that our of our budget.
Our forecast has changed, of course. We are no longer supposed to get snow tomorrow (Saturday). Sunday is supposed to be colder, but also without snow. Monday, however, it now says there will be “isolated flurries”, with rain and possibly another 5-10cm of snow.
Monday is when I have to drive into the city for Case Management about our restraining order.
*sigh*
At least I can be confident the roads will be plowed by then. When I first started working on our driveway, I could hear the reverse alarm of heavy equipment in the distance, so I think the main road may already be done.
For now, I’m going to have another giant mug of tea!
Posting might be sparse for a while. Our internet went down last night, and has not come back, yet. Likely due to Blizzard conditions to the south of us.
We are in pretty good condition here. Maybe 5 or 6 inches of very wet snow. A few branches fallen from the weight. Our gazebo tent collapsed under the weight. But we are fine, and so are the outside cats. :-)
I am getting just enough data signal on my phone, that I can make a text post. Hopefully. If you are reading this, it worked.
As if I weren’t feeling ticked off enough for the wasted day, with so much work to do outside, I look at the forecast and find this.
Granted, only the app on my phone says we’re going to have an actual blizzard, whereas my desktop weather app says we’re only supposed to get less than half a centimeter on Wednesday, then possibly 5-10cm of snow on Thursday, but sheesh.
That means we have only tomorrow to get the work done, and what doesn’t get done before the snow arrives will not get done until spring.
Here’s hoping this is another one of those times where the predicted weather passes right by us again.
He came over this morning, his truck loaded for bear, to install the sign I made to replace the one that was stolen. And, wow, did he ever go all out!
Once we decided where to put the sign, he used the little legs on the back of it to mark how far apart to set the posts, in the ground.
He started working from the outside of the fence, clearing away some brush growing at the fence line, using the soil auger bit on his drill to make post holes, then using the metal bar to widen the holes. He hit rocks, of course, but was able to either break right through them, or move them. He did have to cut away a section of spruce root, though.
While he worked on the outside of the fence, I worked on the inside.
The area was pretty overgrown, and I worked on cleaning it up so we could access things. This also gave us a chance to take a good look at the corner post, which turned out to be quite solid. It’s just tilting. You can even see how one of the support boards has broken from the pressure!
He ended up setting the 8′ fence posts slightly more than 2′ deep. He brought his post pounder and a level, and had to do a bit of back and forth-ing between them, to get them level at the top.
While he worked on that, I continued clearing undergrowth.
I continued clearing into this area, wanting to have access to the telephone company’s post. My brother confirmed that the green wire is a ground wire.
When planning for tree planting, we need to make sure not to plant over the buried phone wire. In our brother’s property across the road, there is an open alley through the trees. I had figured we just needed to line up with that and we’d be good. However, this post it not at all lined up with the alley.
My brother remembers when the phone lines were buried, and was able to tell me why. My father had asked them to move where they were laying the wire down in the quarter section across the road, so as not to take down the large, mature spruces they would have gone right through. They agreed. Once they crossed to the home quarter, they shifted back to being closer to the north property line. There is another one of these posts near our second gate, right at the north fence line, and my brother says the line was laid from this post to the other.
Which means it continues to shift diagonally, northward, along the way.
It also means the lone chokecherry tree that was allowed to grow in the open grass along the lilac hedge, it directly over the buried phone lines.
*sigh*
I am so thankful that my brother is able to tell me this stuff. He’s the only living person left who knows it! This will help us in working out where to plant trees and bushes.
Here is the corner, all cleared of underbrush. Even the trees that were left to grow got a bit of a necessary trim.
Gosh, it look so much better!
As for the posts, my brother took soil from the ditch to put around the posts. In the process, he cleared the ditch a bit, so that any water in there would not be as obstructed.
We then used his pounder to pack down the soil, with him doing the outside while I did the inside.
What an awesome tool!!! I want one!
I also want one of those steel bars (there was one here, but it got disappeared before we moved here) and a post pounder. :-)
Then it was time to attach the sign. The legs were trimmed off, but the wood attached to the back was left. Between us, we worked out exactly where it would sit, so that the the remains of the legs on the back lined up with the roundest part of the post. While I held it in place from the inside, he marked the based and drilled a couple of screws at the line, to support the weight of the sign. Then he screwed the sign to the posts at the top, using deck screws, right where he would later add the carriage bolts. Once it was secure, and I didn’t need to hold it up anymore, he drilled pilot holes at the bottom, then enlarged them to the size needed for the bolts.
A perfect fit!
After helping put the washers and nuts on the bolts, I continued cleaning up the undergrowth while he finished attaching the sign.
This is the “after” by the telephone company’s post. I didn’t want to clear out all the small trees, as we do want what little privacy they can give us. Several dead branches from the pair of spruce trees got trimmed off, too.It’s remarkable how big the pile gets, and how quickly!
Then, while I hauled the branch pile away, adding it to the one that’s out by the spruce grove, my brother added some final touches to the back of the sign.
A board was added for extra strength and stability.
We’re just assuming our vandal is going to try and do something to it, so he also added extra locking washers to the back of the carriage bolts, and other things. They cannot be taken off now!
He also attached the barbed wire to the post and…
… in what seemed like the space of a heartbeat, installed a new fence post. The old one beside it is free floating; completely detached from the ground.
He even added a second one.
In this spot, the fence was so unsupported, my brother was able to lay the barbed wire on the ground, so it would be easy for us to cross the fence. After we were done and he was straightening things up, he installed another post. This time, I was able to provide the post, from the collection of fence posts I’ve been finding as we clean up. Just a couple of new posts, with the old posts keeping the barbed wire properly spaced, the fence is surprisingly more secured, and the wire was taught enough to actually make it difficult to slip between them as we crossed in and out!
Speaking of secure…
For some reason, there was an old post lying loose on the ground, not attached to anything. So we used that to add support to the corner post. My brother brought out a post maul – yet another of his many tools that he brought, just in case! – and was even able to straighten the corner post, just a little bit. Then he added some screws to the support post we added, as well as the one that was already there, to secure them even more. The last thing that was done, was installing the mounting hardware for the newer security camera. It took a while to find a good place for it. I wanted to make sure it covered the area in front of the sign, but also not face the main road. There is enough traffic around there that we’d ended up draining batteries like crazy, from the motion sensor being triggered so often. The mounting hardware also allowed me to adjust the camera even more, to make sure it was aimed exactly where I wanted. Of course, it also has to be set up so it can be reached easily, to switch the memory card and change the batteries.
If our vandal does decide to do something to the sign, we’ll have it on file. The camera isn’t exactly hidden, and may act as a deterrent, too. Unless our vandal is drunk again, at which point, he wouldn’t care if he was being recorded. I’m just hoping that if he does decide to do something to the sign, he’ll see the camera and stop.
Since the sign has our name an address on it, obviously I’m not going to post a picture of it here, but my brother is very happy with how it looks, and I’m very happy to have it up, so much sooner than I expected!
In all, it took us about 3 hours in total, to install the sign, a couple extra fence post, the trail cam, and clean up. Then my brother headed straight home, because he had so much to do at his place this afternoon, too!
Have I mentioned I have the best brother?
It deserves repeating.
Later on, when it’s dark out, I want to go back out and take a photo of the sign with flash, to see how the reflective paint shows up behind the lettering. I know my brother will want to see how it looks, too!
I am so happy this is done and – as a bonus – that corner got cleaned up. It looks so much better. We’re not cleaning up the rest of the fence line until we have planted the berry bushes we intend as a privacy screen.
It’s starting to look really nice out in that corner!
When it was time to feed the ginger bug, I decided it was time to start our first batch of fermented pop (aka: soda).
In looking for recipes and instructions on how to actually use the ginger bug, I found myself with some issues. One was the ratios of ginger bug to liquid, which tended to be for only a quart of liquid. Which seems a ridiculously small amount. Mind you, there’s four of us that will be drinking it, so that might have something to do with my perception. ;-) The most useful I found was to use 1/2 cup of ginger bug to 7 1/2 cups of sweet liquid. Pretty basic.
It was the fermentation container that seemed to be all over the place. Some sights said to ferment the ginger bug in a jar covered with cheese cloth or coffee filter. Others said to put it in a sealed jar and open it up every day, to release gasses. Some said to put it in a container with an airlock. All of these then said to bottle the finished beverage, usually recommending swing top bottles, but sometimes plastic bottles. Then there were those that said to pour the mixed liquid straight into swing top bottles for the fermentation period.
In the end, I decided to use one of my husband’s distilled water containers. We get distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, and I’ve started keeping the empty bottles to use in the garden.
We’re accumulating quite a few of them.
So this gives me a food safe container in a gallon size that has a sealable cap.
We started by measuring out 7 1/2 cups of the Cranberry Raspberry Cocktail I got for the purpose and pouring it into the jug, to judge if we would be doubling the recipe or not. We decided to go ahead and do another 7 1/2 cups, for 15 cups in total.
This is the ingredients list for the Cranberry Raspberry Cocktail. Which also has juices from grapes, pears and apples. The important part is that it has sugar in it, which means I did not have to add any sugar to feed the yeast during fermentation.
Pouring and straining the ginger bug out of the 750ml canning jar we are using would be messy, but we happen to have a ladle small enough to fit into the wide mouth jar, so we used that to ladle the liquid into a measuring cup through a strainer. Very few ginger pieces got caught in the process, so that worked out very well.
I found the amount in the juice bottle odd. 3.78L? A gallon is 4.5L, isn’t it?
Then I remembered; US gallons and Imperial gallons are not that same. LOL That is 1US gallon of juice. The distilled water bottle, however, gets referred to as a “gallon”, but is actually 4L.
Whatever. The end result is, a decent amount of headspace at the top of the water bottle, even after adding a cup of ginger bug liquid.
There was still some juice left behind, so the daughter that was assisting me, chugged it. It may be “cranberry raspberry” cocktail, but she tasted mostly apple!
No matter. It should still make an interesting carbonated drink!
We then replaced the cup of liquid removed from the ginger bug with our drinking water – the stuff we buy, rather than our well water – and fed it with some more ginger and sugar before putting it back in the cupboard, safe from the cats.
Then the fermentation bottle got labeled and dated. I figure we can wait a few days and, if the ginger bug is nice and bubbly after being used, we’ll start another batch.
For now, this bottle will stay out at room temperature. Every day, we’ll give it a squeeze. As long as it has give to it, it’ll stay out, but once it feels hard, that means it’s fermented enough and will be transferred to the fridge, so it doesn’t explode. From what I’ve read, this can take anywhere from 4 to 10 days. The house is fairly cool, so I predict it will be closer to 10 days.
Once in the fridge, it will need to be drunk within a few weeks, or it will lose its carbonation.
If it tastes any good, it’s unlikely to last that long. Not between four people!
I’m looking forward to seeing how this works! If it does work well, we will experiment with other liquids to ferment and keep track of which ones we like. :-)
The Re-Farmer 