I’m happy to say that Beep Beep and Fenrir are now at home, recovering nicely. They did very well at the vet today.
Once I lifted Fenrir onto the bed to remove the bandage on her “wrist”, she settled right in, and is still sitting there as I write this.
Beep Beep, on the other hand, has been constantly in motion! I was told she had a bit of a panic when the IV was removed, and she was pretty vocal for the ride home. They are now isolated in the room with me, and she’s only just now settled down on the bed, though she is sitting and staring at the door with great intensity!
It took a while to get that bandage off of her!
We’ve got different instructions than with the outside cats. Water only for now, then a bit of food to see if they can handle solids yet, this evening. Starting tomorrow morning, we have a pain killer to give them. The dose is based on weight, which they highlighted on the package in different colours. Beep Beep is over 3kg, or about 7 pounds, while Fenrir is just barely over 2kg, or about 5 pounds. I did ask about her small size, and if it should be a concern, and was told no. She is just a small cat. As for the pain killer, we have a syringe to administer it – a much smaller one than was we used to feed Cabbages!
If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.
We can put the medication on their food, but only if we’re sure they won’t eat each other’s food, which… ha! Not going to happen. So we will dose them directly into their mouths.
Beep Beep is not going to like that!
It should be interesting to see if she has a “catonality” change, like Butterscotch did, after this surgery.
Once I got the call telling me when to pick them up, I left early to run some errands first. One of them was to pick up the soft sided carrier used to transport Cabbages to the cat lady for medical car. This time, it did make it to the donation bin at the shelter – and I was happy to see actual donations in there, too. Last time, it was empty.
I was also able to connect with our mechanic and talk to him about our brakes on the van. I told him about what the garage in the city told me, and then the warning light turning on the next day. He thought there might be some water in the fluid, and asked me to drop it off so he can check it with his tester. Once he does that, he’ll be able to tell me more, and give me an estimate. The estimate will determine if we can get it fixed right away, or if it has to wait until the end of the month. February, at least, is a short month! :-)
I’ll also be able to give him the printout and we can talk about the other things they listed as needing to be checked out, and make any future appointments needed, as the budget allows.
I’ll be dropping the van off the day after tomorrow. He did suggest tomorrow, but the girls have their own shopping list for a city trip, so I’ll be driving in with one of them, using my mother’s car. It’s due for a highway run, anyhow.
Tomorrow, we still have a forecast of 1C/34F. Today, we warmed up to at least -8C/17C. The thermometer in the sun room reached 8C/46F, so that was quite nice for the kitties in there! And now, even my other weather apps are showing a high of 3C/37F, a few days from now. If we do get that warm, it’s going to feel downright tropical out there! :-D
This morning, a daughter and I took Beep Beep and Fenrir to the vet, which meant doing the morning rounds a bit earlier.
At least it’s light out, now.
The heated water bowl was empty again.
Because Beep Beep and Fenrir needed to fast, I had them closed up with me, overnight. Which meant I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I had cats trying to claw the door open from both sides! When I made the mistake of going to the bathroom before going to bed, I had Beep Beep escape, dashing down to the basement. I caught her before she ate anything, though. Then I tried to get her back into the bedroom, only to have Fenrir escape. I caught her, only to have Beep Beep escape again, and she was NOT going to let me catch her! I finally had to snag a daughter to catch her, then hang on to her while I dashed into the bedroom, grabbed Fenrir and held on while my daughter quickly tossed Beep Beep onto the bed before any other cats got in.
I had only one carrier in the room with me, but that was enough for me to be able to get out of the room long enough to grab the second one, this morning. I had both carriers on the bed, with Beep Beep in the hard sided one (where she was trying to claw her way out!) before doing the inside cat morning routine and warming water up for the outside cats. Before heading outside, I went to move the carriers closer to the old kitchen door for later.
When I walked into my room, I found Beep Beep and the carrier gone from the bed.
!!!
I found it on the side of the bed, sitting as if it had been placed there. :-D She had managed to roll the carrier completely off the bed, and it landed right side up!
The plan was to do the critter part of my morning rounds first, then get my mother’s car started and warming up, so I made sure to hang my purse inside the sun room, so I could just grab and go.
It’s a good thing I did.
The old kitchen door into the house hadn’t latched properly behind me. Looking in from the sun room, I found it crawling with exploring cats!
Thankfully, my daughter was able to take care of that, while I went to my mother’s car – after scraping away more ice and snow, just to be able to open one of the doors wide enough – and getting everything ready so we just needed to grab the cats and go.
The drop off went well, with my daughter taking the time to warn them about some of their quirks. We just happen to be bringing two of our “meanest” cats this time. :-D
I still haven’t been able to connect with our mechanic, so we swung by the garage to see if I could talk to him about our van. Unfortunately, though it was supposed to be open, he wasn’t there. He’s on his own, so if he has to get anything, there’s no one to do it for him and he has to lock up. :-/ Hopefully, we’ll get another chance, later.
Once we got home, I was able to spend more time with our recovering kitties.
Nosencrantz doesn’t like to leave her favourite spot under the light bulb. It burnt out last night, but I found one last full spectrum bulb in our stash of incandescent bulbs – this light is meant for seedlings, not cats! :-D – but it’s brighter than the old one, so I wasn’t sure if she’s still like it. She clearly has no issues!
Butterscotch, meanwhile, has switched favourite beds! Usually, we find her in an enclosed box bed on the bottom shelf, but now she’s gone up a left and has been hanging out in the open bed. We’ve also been finding her loafed under the ceramic heat bulb more often, too.
She accepted pets, but had no interest in leaving her bed! :-D
Meanwhile, we have already heard back from the vet. They were checking details about our arrangement with the organization that’s helping us with all this, in regards to the shots and deworming and the like, as was arranged when we brought in Butterscotch and Nosencrantz.
Beep Beep had already been done and they were about to start on Fenrir. Since I had her on the phone, I brought up what they had found with Butterscotch, and how far gone her uterus was, and if there was anything similar with Beep Beep. It was quite a bit larger, and looking a bit worn out, just from having to many litters, but it was not so badly damaged as Butterscotch’s was. We don’t know how old either of them are, but I think we can now safely assume that Beep Beep is the younger one. For all we know, Butterscotch is her mother.
So we will get a call back later, to let us know when they can be picked up.
Meanwhile, the cat lady messaged me last night, with a reminder to have Beep Beep and Fenrir start their fast. While I had her, I asked about Cabbages.
Yesterday was her last day on antibiotics. Yay!! She’s eating quite a lot now, and today, she be moved out of the cage, to their “cat room.” In a few days, she will have a buddy joining her. That would be the more recent frozen cat they picked up, that lost its ears.
I’m just amazed by how quickly she’s bouncing back from being at death’s door the way she was!
If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.
So now we are just waiting for the call from the vet, for when we can bring Beep Beep and Fenrir home. Since they are both inside cats, we won’t have to do any isolating, but we’ll be keeping a litter box, food and water in my office/bedroom for a while, so they don’t have to go far.
The next trip to the vet, in a couple of weeks, we’ll be taking cats in, and they won’t be coming back. The cat lady will be taking them to fosters for recovery, and then they will be adopted into forever homes. As she’s able to book dates with the vet, we’ll keep doing that for the rest of the adoptable cats (the males are already fixed, as is one female) through March and April. By then, we should be able to start snagging outside cats, starting with the ones we can catch easily (which all happen to be male). Then, once it’s warm enough to do so safely, she will lend us traps for the outside cats that we haven’t been able to socialize at all.
It’s going to be weird, to not have so many cats around!
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were doing very well, this morning. They both seem to be enjoying their recovery period in the sun room! Nosencrantz wants more attention than Butterscotch, but not enough that I can get a good look to see how the ear mite status is. Butterscotch is still so much calmer now. She’ll come over for pets and I was even able to pick her up this morning, but she will not let me check the surgical site. I’m not about to risk injuring it by forcing her; so as long as there aren’t any concerning warning signs, I figure she’s doing fine. Amazingly, she still has shown no interest in trying to escape the sun room, which is so totally different from the past. Granted, when we were trying to keep her in the sun room for lengths of time before, it was because she was about to have kittens. Once she had them, she was more than content to let Beep Beep parent both litters while she tore her way through the screen on the old door.
If this behavioural change keeps up, Butterscotch may actually be willing to become an indoor cat!
We shall see. After all those years outdoors, it would be nice for her final years to be in comfort and safety.
By the time I’m done taking care of the sun room kitties, there’s usually a crowd outside the door, waiting for their kibble! Chadiccus, however, was much more polite about it and wanting attention before food. :-)
The water in the heated bowl was almost completely gone again, and it had been very full. It does make me wonder what other critters are coming around at night, to drink. The snow around the kibble house and water bowls is too hard packed for tracks. One of these days, it would be nice to have a spare camera set up on the area, just to see what’s going on! :-)
I’ve not been seeing quite as many cats, all at once, of late. I haven’t seen Potato Beetle in a while. Since he came back, he had been more aggressive about being the Alpha male – though he was tackling the females as much as the males. That seemed to end after I found him with that injury above one eye. It was pretty minor and healing up nicely, the last I saw, but it seems that battle lost him his status. I think I might have seen him this morning, but he slunk away before I could get a good look and be sure.
While putting the food and water out, I heard a loud yowling from the outer yard. I’ve heard it before, but when I when to check, I couldn’t see where it was coming from. This time, I saw Creamsicle Baby out by the pump shack. I’m still not sure it was him, as he’s developed a very squeaky little meow. I went to check closer and decided the pump shack door needed to be shoveled out.
This is where the cats usually get in and out of the pump shack. When the driveway was cleared, a pile of snow was made near the pump shack. While it does not block the door, there’s a ridge of snow in front that’s pretty high. With the winds we’ve been having, more snow has drifted in front of the door. The cats are still squeezing their way through, as you can see in the photo above, but I wanted to make it easier for them. It took breaking up a lot of snow with the ice chipper before I could dig a path, but I got it clear.
The door opens inward, so I didn’t have to worry about digging it out too much. Once I got it clear enough, I went in and cleared away some snow that had blown through the hole.
I had a bit of a surprise when I opened the door, though. One of the lights was on! I forgot to shut it off, the last time I was in there. It’s a CFL bulb, not very bright, and not near a window facing the house, so we never saw that it was on. :-D Ah, well. No harm done.
When repairing the south facing window of the pump shack a couple of summers ago, I deliberately left an opening that used to have the chimney from a wood burning stove running through it. The stove is long gone, but with a pile of tires on the outside, and various junk on the inside, it’s a way for the cats to get in and out. The shack itself is just a frame with cladding on the outside, and I noticed a new hole in the wall, where some cladding has broken. It’s not visible from the outside, as there are sheets of aluminum against the bottom of the wall on that side.
On our list of things to work on is to fix up the pump shack. The concrete floor is badly cracked up, and the old cladding – which would be quite a bit older than I am – is looking water damaged and has gaps. It would be awesome to turn this building into a little workshop and, of course, we want to get the old well repaired. There is a lot of stuff in there I just don’t know what to do with, including bags of ancient clothing and rolled up awnings stuffed into the rafters, broken furniture, an old fridge that I remember my parents using for cream cans, and even an old, tiny, two burner electric stove sitting in the corner where the wood burning cookstove used to be. That old cookstove was what we used to heat water for baths, before my dad had the well dug next to the house and got running water and an indoor bathroom. If we can fix the well and fix up the pump shack, we could turn it into a summer kitchen for canning.
That would be very handy.
After clearing a cat path to the door, I put feed out for the deer and birds – interrupting two deer that were at the feeding station! I had to interrupt them again, to go switch out the memory cards on the trail cam by the sign.
That location is a real pain to get to in the winter!!! At least I don’t have to switch the cards as often, there. Between the snow and the plow ridges, I’m not at all concerned that our vandal will fight his way over to the sign and try to steal it, like the old one, or damage it.
Not even the deer will go through the area in front of the sign! A nicely plowed road is so much easier. :-D
Coming back to the house, I found these two babies, bellies full and watching the world go by in warmth and comfort!
These cats may be semi-feral, but they do get pampered as much as we can! :-D
Rolando Moon had claimed the prime real estate! She’s such a meany to the other cats, they don’t even try to fight her for this favourite spot.
Gosh, that expression! :-D
While still a bit chilly today, we’re supposed to warm up quite a bit tomorrow – perfect for taking Beep Beep and Fenrir in to the vet. My Weather Network app on my desktop has suddenly gone haywire, so I used the app that came with my computer.
Of course, all the apps are showing something different, since they all seem to be connected to different weather stations, even though they’re all supposed to be for our specific area. This is the only one that is showing us going above freezing, in the long range forecast. Above freezing in the middle of February? Yeah, I’ll take that, thanks. It’ll make things messy, but I’d rather have a nice, slow melt of all this snow, then for things to warm up all at once, later on. With the amount of snow we have this winter, as much as it’s needed, if it melts before the municipalities get a chance to clear the ditches, we’ll get flooding. Where we are doesn’t get too bad anymore. When I was a kid, there were a couple of sections of road that would get washed out every spring. Since then, a network of municipal drainage ditches have been dug through farmers’ fields that have been doing a good job of preventing that, as has taking trees out along the sides of the roads in strategic locations. There are still a couple of spots that are at risk of being washed out, if there is enough snowmelt all at once, but we are able to use alternative routes to avoid them.
If we have a wet enough spring, we might even be able to do a controlled burn in some sections of the outer yard this year. Wouldn’t that be nice!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Seeing those warmer temperatures in the forecast has me looking way too far ahead right now! :-D
The Re-Farmer
If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.
Since we switched to Starlink, not all that long ago, I’ve been quite happy with the improvement of my internet speed and connectivity. Especially the connectivity. That was the biggest issue with our old satellite provider. We were paying an awful lot for limited data, and the connectivity just kept getting worse and worse.
Now, my “office” is in the corner of my bedroom, where the external walls are log. Even with a wi-fi booster, just being set up where I am is probably the worst part of the house to get wi-fi. Plus, my desktop is rather old and having a harder time keeping up with the newer technology. Still, with a little booster set up, and the improved connectivity with Starlink, I was quite content with my desktop’s internet speeds.
My husband was not.
He also wasn’t satisfied with the bare bones router that came with the Starlink system. They actually upgraded while we were in line for it, so it’s not what people are getting now. One issue was that the router had only one port in it. My husband likes to have his computer wired directly, but we also need to connect our security camera.
So he ended up getting a NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System (RBK852) – Router with 1 Satellite Extender (not an affiliate link). The extender is set up in the living room; another wi-fi semi-dead zone.
Also, you can set up a payment plan. There was no way we could have afforded it, otherwise!
He got that set up, and was seeing huge increases in speed on his desktop. Plus, he could be directly wired in with his computer, and the security camera could be, too, though still with the original Starlink router. It won’t work with wi-fi 6. Too old. So we’ve got both running at the same time.
Me?
Meh.
In fact, when I first tried to log onto the new network, I lost all ability to do anything online. It turns out that I just needed to give it more time to set up in the background. Whatever. I wasn’t unhappy with my wi-fi, so I honestly didn’t care. I was good with what I had.
My husband was not.
The other thing he picked up was for my desktop. A new wi-fi card to enable me to get wi-fi 6. (also, not an affiliate link).
He just finished setting it up for m. I now have antennae sticking out the back of my tower. :-D He also set me up with the new network.
So, of course, I did a speed test once I settled at my computer.
The results always fluctuate, of course, but right now, not only am I able to use the new router’s signal, but my speed is dramatically improved.
This is the history of speed tests I did today. Can you tell when the new card was installed? :-D
It turns out my computer is so old, it couldn’t read the installation mini-disk that came with the card. My husband had to read it on his own computer, download it onto a thumb drive, then use that to install the wi-fi card on my desktop.
What would I do without my awesome, techy husband? :-D
My phone consistently got better speeds than my desktop. While my desktop saw an improvement because of the new wi-fi card, this is what my phone got, just with the new router.
The download speed is about 50-60% improved from what I would typically get using my phone.
Yes, I was quite content with what I had, but I’m going to quite appreciate this upgrade!
We had another storm sweep through the area, but that climate bubble sitting over us resulted in our having a bit of snow and wind, but nothing that could possibly be called a storm.
The outside cats are quite good with that!
Especially since it’s also warming up a bit.
I even got to pet the Distinguished Guest this morning.
Their heated water bowl was almost completely empty this morning. That actually made it easier to clean. I could scrub the bottom with snow, then just scoop out the dirty snow.
The metal water bowls were, of course, filled with ice. These are all old stainless steel frying pans with their handles broken off. I’ve found they make the best water bowls, as they can handle a lot of abuse. Like being kicked and stomped until the break loose from the ice and snow.
I wasn’t able to get a photo, but after getting one of them loose, there was something strange and mirror-like under it.
The pan had split!
This pan had one of those multi-layer bases for even heat distribution. Between getting filled with warm water, then frozen to the ground, then kicked loose, repeatedly, the base layer finally just popped right off! I look forward to getting a better look at it, once the ground thaws. I’m not going to bother trying to dig it out, now. :-D
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are doing very well in the sun room. After moving the sheets of rigid insulation I had to reduce drafts from the window, Butterscotch now likes to sit there, under the ceramic heater bulb. Nosnecrantz, meanwhile, prefers sitting on the fixture! We’ve got the full spectrum light bulb hanging from the top of the mini-greenhouse frame we’re using to hold all this, with the board the ceramic heater bulb supported by the top shelf. I had some concerns about leaving the light on constantly, since I thought the cats might actually want full darkness at time, but Nosencrantz loves it. Though there are several soft beds in boxes she can choose from, she’s preferring to sleep on a board, under the light! I’m guessing the board itself is a bit warm, just from rising heat from the ceramic bulb.
Speaking of warm, check this out.
Not only are we still expected to reach 1C/34F in a couple of days, but now we’re supposed to reach 3C/37F a couple of days later!
With more snow.
Whatever. I’m loving this milder February we’re having this year!
There’s stuff going on so quickly right now, it’s hard to keep up, but I’ll just start with this video, to give you a taste of what’s going on with the Freedom Convoy. If, for some reason, a video below doesn’t load for you, try clicking here. (original TikTok source) This is from the lawyer representing the Freedom Convoy.
Right from this morning, I was hearing some of the most infuriating things regarding the Freedom Convoy. One of the radio stations aired questions messaged to them. In part of it, while “graciously” acknowledging the right to peaceful protest, they went on to ask, what gives people the right to use vehicles?
Seriously? Suddenly, the right to protest is limited to… what? People on foot? There have been many protests that included cars, trucks, motorcycles, RVs and even horses. But now, it’s suddenly in question?
Then there was the question of, what gives protestors rights over the general public?
Has this person never seen a protest before? Especially all the “mostly peaceful” protests during Trump’s presidency that included riots, vandalism, theft, arson, assault and murder?
More than that, the protestors are protesting legally, and have the exact same rights as the general public. But this person seems to believe that, because they don’t like this particular protest, they should be denied rights all Canadians are supposed to have?
It’s right up there with people demanding that the protestors have to be quiet and super polite, and must never show strong emotions – which always get interpreted as “angry” (as if there’s something wrong with being angry over what our governments have done to us over the past two years). Also, see the statement above out protests we’ve seen in the past few years.
The person who shared this had sent in their own response, which did not get aired. The narrative must be upheld!
Speaking of narrative, our government overlords and the media are doubling down on the hateful rhetoric, slander and outright lies.
But before I touch on that more, that $10million that was raised to support the truckers through GoFundMe? Money the government has been salivating over? Or at least Ottawa’s mayor. Well, they succeed in having the account frozen, and now it’s shut down. GoFundMe is claiming they have police reports of violence, and that the protest has become an “occupation”. Which is utter BS. The police have suddenly started issuing a slough of tickets, mostly for traffic violations. I’m curious how they ticketed someone for speeding, when the trucks are all just sitting there. And the only violence has been against the truckers, not by them.
Basically, GoFundMe has stolen $9million ($1 had already been released, to help pay for things like fuel). The statement at the site said something about working with the organizers to have the money donated to the charity of their choosing. People, however, donated to help the truckers, and all over the various social media groups I’m following, they are demanding refunds.
Also, a new Bitcoin fundraiser has already been started. People want to support the truckers, and GoFundMe is hardly the only way to do it. Frankly, I am not surprised they did this, given their history of double standards. Lord knows, they’ve allowed fundraisers for things that absolutely went against their terms of service, but they looked the other way.
This press conference below was done yesterday, before GoFundMe stabbed them in the back, and they were still thinking things would work out.
This move is going to be a whole lot of mud on GoFundMe’s face.
As usual, The Rubin Report covered the story well.
I tried to embed a video from Facebook but it’s not working, so here is a link. This was a live stream from someone that’s been an online friend of mine for years, and a real standup guy. He was at the Coutts border protest, and makes reference to Jason Kenney, the Alberta Premier, who has proven to be completely untrustworthy. The RCMP have also proven to be untrustworthy. Definitely worth clicking through and giving him a listen.
Viva Frei has been covering the whole thing a lot, including many live streams. Here, he talks about the GoFundMe fiasco.
He interviews people taking part in the protest in this video.
Gosh. All those crazy, “white nationalists”.
Here’s from another guy who’s in the middle of it all.
True North is among the independent media that are reporting accurately. This next video is a “fake news Friday” show and covers the media issue rather well.
The independent Rebel News also asks a very good question.
Why are the truckers being treated differently than past protestors?
Also, the truckers are making sure there are lanes open, so that people can get to work and emergency vehicles can get by. People complaining about not being able to get through are lying. Likewise, claims that they are hurting small businesses (as the government hasn’t been destroying small businesses for the past two years), when the protestors are actually giving places more business than they’ve had in years – when they’re not being jerks to the protestors, that is.
Check this out… people came for a protest, and a dance party broke out.
While this has been going on in Ottawa, other convoys of people who couldn’t go to Ottawa and converging on their own provincial legislatures, and even smaller towns are organizing their own protests in support of the Freedom Convoy. Some started today, while others will be held tomorrow. Oh, and there are still more trucks on their way to Ottawa. In some cities, the police have created blockades to stop the protestors which, ironically enough, is creating more disruption than the protestors would have, in the first place.
If you were to listen to the media and our government overlords, you would be told that these people are violent, rage filled racists, misogynists and homophobes. One of the stories I caught this morning mentioned a business in the area (at least I assume it is in the area) that found their front window broken – a business that just happened to have a pride flag displayed. The implication was that this was done by the truckers, because they’re homophobes, but there was absolutely nothing to support that. It’s just the narrative they want to frame. Oh, and the business went ahead and opened, anyway, with the broken window boarded up. Just more media manipulation.
So why would the media be lying like this? Well, our own Prime Dictator bragged about that, back in 2019.
Yes, he was leading into a joke on this, and went on to read some of the few critical headlines about him. The reality is, all our government approved media is dependent on the government. Aside from the $600million of our tax dollars he’s joking about, they are being kept afloat with all the Covid ads, also paid for with tax dollars. Governments don’t have their own money. It all comes from us. And right now, they are doubling down in slandering the Freedom Convoy, and whipping up anger and hatred. Since the protestors themselves have been doing things like dancing, singing, shoveling snow, feeding people and being an incredibly loving, passionate, positive and peaceful group, that has managed to not rise to the bait while being goaded, these media have no other option than to just lie through their teeth.
It’s the government rhetoric that is most troubling. The language they are using to describe the protest, now calling it an “occupation” in a militarized sense (not like when the Occupy movement actually did engage in occupations, apparently), and doubling down, is very troubling.
Someone had brought up an interesting point. In India, they gained their independence through peaceful protest. Non-violence was their method. What was pointed out is that this only worked because they were up against the British who, for all the things they may have done, did still have a sense of objective morality. They may not have lived up to that morality very well, but it was there. It would not have worked if they had tried such non-violent protests in, say, the USSR. Their morality was completely different, and they had no problem just slaughtering people. Which they did, at times, to the tune of millions dead over the years. I have family who were involved in Poland’s fight for freedom from Communist rule. Some of them permanently damaged by the beatings they got as they fought for freedoms we have been taking for granted. The Polish people did eventually win, but it was not “peaceful” or non-violent. It couldn’t be, because of what they were up against.
What I fear is that our government overlords are a lot more like Soviet Russia. Listening to them, I feel they are priming us for something drastic, so that when it happens, people will blame the truckers instead of the government.
Canada has been living under medical tyranny, and the powers that be are not willing to give up that power, just because people they view with contempt are finally standing up to it.
How far are they willing to go to keep that power?
It feels like everything is crumbling, but I can’t tell which way the pieces are falling.
Though it is very early in the year, we have our first seeds started indoors today. A lot of people in our zone have already got seedlings, while still others are saying, it’s way too early.
So which is it?
I happened on a video today, talking about planting peppers and eggplants, which we are doing for the first time this year. Both are plants we never grew when I was a kid, so I have zero familiarity with them.
This particular video mentioned something I’ve never heard before, yet had wondered about.
When reading the seed packets, they say things like “start indoors 4-6 weeks before last frost date”.
Last year, we had a lot of issues with some things not germinating. Some took forever to germinate. Others never did at all. This was particularly true of various squash, plus all the Hope Black Dye sunflowers – with did finally all germinate, when I started taking the trays outside, while hardening off other seedlings.
What got mentioned in this video, is that when they say “4-6 weeks before last frost,” it’s actually from germination, not from planting the seeds. So if you have something that needs to be started, say, 6 weeks before last frost, but the packet says the seeds take 7-10 days to terminated, then the time to start them indoors is 6 weeks, plus 7-10 days.
That actually makes so much more sense to me.
I’d already made a list of which seeds needed to be started when, and these were the ones that needed at least 8 weeks.
The gourds were started first, as they needed extra steps. Among the things recommended that I wanted to try was scarification and pre-soaking.
So that’s what I started this morning.
Of the gourds we will be trying to grow this year, I chose the Canteen gourd to start early, as the gourds are supposed to get quite large. The other gourds I want to grow are smaller at full maturity.
Which lead me to another thing. With the luffa, we’re not after “days to maturity”, which is 110 days, if I remember correctly. We’re after the sponges, so we need for those mature gourds to dry out. That puts them at 200 days. Even starting now, we might not have that long for them. It will depend on whether or not we get another really long summer again. Of course, in the end, everything depends on the weather.
I chose 6 of the plumpest, healthiest looking seeds from each, then carefully snipped their outer shells with a nail clipper, before putting them inside the folds of a paper towel.
Then they went into sandwich baggies, and the insides were sprayed with water, before being sealed and left to sit. Most places recommended leaving them overnight, but I left them “overday” instead. ;-)
Then they went into planting pots filled with pre-moistened seed starting soil. My daughter used a chopstick to push them the inch into the soil they needed to go. Once covered, the tops of the soil got sprayed with water.
Then it was time to take a look at the rest of the seeds and see what we had to work with. None of the packets have a lot of seeds in them, but we are not after a lot of individual plants.
The Sophie’s Choice tomato was a conundrum for me. Everything I read about them said they needed to be started very early; a couple of weeks earlier than other tomatoes. Yet they are an early tomato, with only 55 days to maturity. At only 55 days, we could start them outdoors and they’d have plenty of time to mature. Odd.
For all but the Wonderberry, we decided to plant about 5 seeds per pot, and three pots each. With the gourds, that filled an entire tray.
The Wonderberry got planted using the double cup method. I reused some of the Red Solo cups we used last year, with the inner cups having drainage holes in the bottom, so they can be watered from below, using the outer cup.
We still had seeds left over, even with how little was in each packet, so that’s nice.
We used more boxes to bring the tray and cups closer to the lights, inside the big aquarium greenhouse. The heat mat fits under the tray. I’m hoping that just being near the mat as well as close to the light fixtures, one of which does warm up, will be good enough to adequately warm the Wonderberry in their cups.
The double cups got water in their bottoms before they were put in place, and water was added to the tray once it was settled on the heat mat. We do still have a little fan blowing into the tank, though it’s over the orchids and aloe in the other corner. We won’t be able to cover these with a plastic dome, as typically recommended, so I’ll be making sure to use a spray bottle to keep the tops moistened, since the smaller seeds are so much closer to the surface. There’s quite a bit of water in the tray so, with the heat mat, that should help increase the humidity levels, with the fan hopefully keeping things from starting to mold.
The heat mat doesn’t have a thermometer, nor do we have a soil thermometer, so we’ll have to monitor these fairly closely. Everything is plugged into a power bar, which gets shut off every night, so there will at least be that break. If it seems to be getting too warm – unlikely, for what we’ve got planted in there – we can put something under the tray to elevate it. Once the seeds germinate, we can probably take the mat out entirely.
The next things we’ll be starting are the onions, which won’t need the heat mat, but when it comes time to start the rest of the tomatoes, and all the squash, we’ll need both the heat mat and space – and space is going to be harder to come by! We do have a mini greenhouse, the frame of which we are currently using in the sun room to hold the heater bulb for Butterscotch and Nosencratnz, as they recover. We did try to use it in the living room last year, as it does have a zippered cover, but the cats still managed to get into it. If we could find some way to keep the cats out of it, it would go a long way to helping with our space issues!
We’ll figure something out.
The main thing is, we’ve got stuff started that need that extra time indoors.
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! :-D
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!” :-D 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!
We got some wonderful updates on how Cabbages is doing today, and I am beyond thrilled.
She has regained 2 pounds!
At her lowest, she weighed in at 1.65kg/3.63lb, and today she weighed in at 2.55kg/5.62lbs
I don’t think she ever weighed as much as 3kg/6.6lbs to being with.
She is still on medication and is not allowed out of the cat cage she’s kept in, unless she’s being held. She should soon be allowed out to wander around, though.
Next month, she will be getting spayed by a special vet, due to her neurological history. She will then spend 2 weeks with the cat lady and her family, before moving on to her forever home. She will be living with someone who has been in the animal care industry for 44 years!
Which means Cabbages will be with the cat lady and her family for at least another month. I’m just blown away that they took her – and her unexpected expenses! – on without hesitation, and fought so hard to keep her alive. The costs must be well over the $1200 she last mentioned to me, and not a penny of it is from the organization she is associated with. They would have contributed to the euthanasia cost, though. :-( Cabbages was such a very sick kitty, it’s amazing she was able to pull through!
The cat lady has never asked for anything in return, but she and her family have been so amazing. Even her 5 yr old spends time with Cabbages, every day, making sure she eats and massaging her legs.
*melt*
I do want to do something for her and her family, though. That is why we started the fundraiser, which is to be a surprise to reimburse her for most of the costs. I’m sure the final total she’ll be spending on Cabbages will be more than the $1500 goal we have set. We’ll be contributing as much as we can ourselves, too, of course.
If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser for the awesome cat lady that saved Cabbages, you can go to our Ko-fi donation page.
(There is supposed to be a donation panel under this paragraph. I see it in preview, but not when I publish. Please let me know in the comments below, if you see a donation panel. Thanks!
Update: trying a button this time. Do you see it?)
This fundraiser is intended to be a thank you surprise, so she knows nothing about it or this blog. Since it’s a surprise, I’ve carefully cropped these photos she shared with me today, to remove any identifying features.
Just look at her! She’s looking almost like she did, before she got sick!
The poor little thing has been through so much, in such a short time. It just amazes me, how quickly she is bouncing back. Care is still being taken, of course, and I do wonder what sort of permanent damage she may have sustained. Particularly since it was her brain that was affected.
She may have some company with her, soon. The cat lady mentioned she’d picked up another frozen cat today. It has lost its ears, but will be fine. Once the results of the blood work is in, and they get the all clear, it will be joining Cabbages. She will have a recovery buddy. :-)
Well, the van did start this morning, so I went ahead and did our city shop without even coming inside from doing my morning rounds, other than to grab my purse. No morning kitty pictures, because I was wearing mitts. It was viciously cold out there! I can usually get away with just wearing fingerless gloves, or using my pockets, but not this morning!
Before heading to the city, I made a side track to check the mail and found a package waiting for me.
I’d completely forgotten that we’d be getting something in from T&T Seeds!
Most of what we ordered will be shipped in the spring. We’ll be getting a lot of stuff shipped at about the same time! All the companies we ordered from ship their perishable stock based on what zones the addresses are in, timed to arrive ready to be planted almost immediately. Last frost dates can still vary quite a bit within zones, though, so there’s a possibility some might arrive and need to wait a bit before planting. We shall see.
The Forage Radish seeds are a lot bigger than I expected, but then does grow into a big… well… long, radish. As this is a cover crop, it will be planted strategically in areas we want the soil to be broken up for planting next year, or in between things that might need some “tilling” around them, this year. I don’t expect we’ll use even half of this seed, this year. Unless we decide to start sowing in the outer yard, to lure the deer away! :-D
While in the city, one of my stops was at Canadian Tire, where we pick up the wood pellets we use as kitty litter. I hadn’t been able to get through to our mechanic to reschedule our oil change, so I took a chance and asked if they could book me in at the Canadian Tire, right away. Sure enough, they could fit me in, so I had about an hour to spend in the store.
It is very dangerous for me to be in a place like Canadian Tire. Especially since the oil change was going to be under budget, which meant I had wiggle room!
Along with the wood pellets, I snagged a small folding saw horse. The saw horses we have now are home built and very old, so they’re awfully wibbly. The one I found was on clearance, so I was happy to be able to take advantage of that. I also found some vegetable grow bags on clearance. I was going to make grow bags for the sweet potatoes, using feed bags like we did with potatoes last year, but these bags were so cheap, I went ahead and bought two. It will at least give us something to compare.
I also picked up a couple more trays for seed pots, to allow watering from below, plus one that had square Jiffy Pot type cups in it, for those smaller things we want to start indoors, and will do better if they’re transplanted with their pots, to avoid root disruption. So the extra time I had to spend in the store was productive.
Once the van was ready (complete with a printout of little things they found that I’ll take to our local mechanic to check), I headed to Costco to do the main shopping.
It’s very weird to shop at Costco and buy no meat. I just picked up some fish for my daughters. I didn’t need anything else. I love having such a well stocked freezer!
While there, I picked up a couple more small, plain aluminum baking sheets. I got some last spring, and they came in very handy for moving seedlings in and out of the sun room to harden off.
They also come in very handy as kibble trays for the outside cats, so I was down a couple! :-D
When I got home, the girls made sure to put Butterscotch and Nosencrantz into the carriers while we hauled things through the sun room, into the old kitchen. They even set the carriers up, so the cats could see and watch us. :-D
Then, while the girls put away the groceries, I loaded the van back up with garage for the dump. It’s open this evening, but I was done with driving. It can stay frozen in the van until the dump is open next, two days from now. That’ll give us a chance to gather the recycling together, too.
I’m thinking that tomorrow, we should start getting the luffa, and at least some of the onion seeds, started. I’ve been researching and will try something different with the gourds this time, to help improve germination rates. Of all the gourds we have, the luffa needs the longest growing time.
From the zone 3 garden groups I’m on, we should be starting the eggplant and peppers now, too. Our last frost date is a lot later than the people posting that, though, so holding off at least a bit longer would probably be a good thing.
When it comes to planting our garden this year, we haven’t quite planned locations all out, yet. The existing beds will be easy enough to work with, but we will also be building new – mostly temporary – beds, too, as we slowly reclaim more and more of the old garden area, and work our way closer to the house.
It was a bit funny when I was telling my mother about what we’ll be doing this year. She was having a hard time picturing where we are intending to plant the sea buckthorn and silver buffalo berry, as much as a living fence as for their berries, where we will be planting the Korean Pine, as well as how we haven’t quite decided on where to plant the Highbush Cranberry. She knows we plan to plant more fruit and nut trees, and made this surprising comment about how, if we plant all these trees, we won’t have any garden left. Not just because of the trees taking up the space, but their shade, as well.
There’s two reasons her comment was a surprise. The first is that she had already said to me before that, if it were up to her, she would have filled that entire area with trees by now. She did have a habit of sticking trees in, anywhere, without much thought to whether it would be a good place for them! The other reason is that my parents planted so many trees on the south side of the garden, closest to the house, that there’s not a lot that can grow there anymore. Too much shade! I know they planted these for protection from the wind, but if they’d planted them on the north side of the garden, it would have been just as effective, and wouldn’t have taken away so much prime garden location. It’s one of the main reasons we’re going to build permanent garden beds in the outer yard, where they will get full sun.
My mother and I talked a bit about our wanting to plant a southern shelter belt, because we have a gap that needs to be filled. I told her about the renter wanting to replace the fences (he’s responsible for the fencing, as part of the rental agreement), and that I’d suggested making a new, straight fence line from the barn to the road, rather than going around the old hay yard. It’ll mean a lot less fence to put in, though they’ll loose a small amount of pasture. If they do that, we’ll be able to plant shelter belt trees near it, and not have to worry about having to protect saplings from cows. My mother suggested planting lilacs as a hedge, but I told her that we need to start with something taller, first. Not too tall, though, or we’ll just end up with more shade problems. Many of the farms in the area are completely open, with just a block of shelter belt trees around the house and outbuildings – and their gardens are outside the shelterbelt, far from their houses. There just isn’t anywhere near their houses that gets enough sunlight for the size of gardens they are growing. Whatever trees w decide to plant on the south, I don’t want anything that will get as tall as the spruces we have by the house. They’re about 65ft high, and we’ve been watching how far their shadows are cast, at different times of the year. Since we will be planting permanent garden beds out that way, the last thing we want to do is plant trees that will get so tall, they’ll end up shading the garden beds. I figure we can plant trees that grow no taller than 30 feet and still get the shelter from the wind that we need. Especially if we also plant shrubs along the line, too.
But maybe not more lilacs. I’m thinking more along the lines of hazelnuts and berry bushes! :-D
No decisions can be made until there’s a fence, though!
