Ice and snow

March 13, 2019 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I swung by the lake this morning, after dropping my daughter off at work.

The fishing sheds are still there – from what I know, they were supposed to be off by three days ago! In the distance, I could see some people walking on the ice to a vehicle. There’s been a lot of plowing of snow, done, clearing “roads” to various areas. The open water that was visible the last time I got pictures from here, due to a water main break nearby, is all frozen over.

This morning, I finally started getting the weather alerts for blizzard conditions tonight, in the southeast of our province. The weather system is blowing up from the US, and there is an expected 10-20cm of snow.

Except locally. Our area is supposed to get light snow flurries overnight.

Starting from about a week from now, temperatures are supposed to go above freezing, and stay there. I’ve been reading about the ice breakers already hard at work on the major rivers to the south of us, that drain into this lake. As the ice will be breaking up and snow melting faster in the US and the South of our province than here, ice dams tend to form, leading to flooding. The ice breakers are working to prevent that and will work their way up towards the lake, as quickly as they can.

Here, the ice will soon start to “rot”, and form into candle ice. This can be very dangerous, as the ice still looks thick and solid, but easily breaks apart. On the lake, at least, the tides will break it apart and start pushing the ice onto the shore. I happened to be on this beach one time, many years ago, as the tide was coming in, and it was really quite dramatic!

It’s already warming up nicely this morning; we even had fog, as we drove to town, closer to the lake. We’re supposed to reach +1C this afternoon, but it already feels that warm in the sun. The outside cats are definitely liking the warmer temperatures, and spending less time in the sun room.

I’m looking forward to when I can empty that room and clean it out, though. The warmer it gets, the worse the cat urine smell. :-( Ah, well. All in good time!

The Re-Farmer

Critter of the Day: those lovely eyes

March 13, 2019March 10, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

The calico/torties are very shy, so it’s always nice to finally get a good photo of either of them.

We call them Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, but I think I’ll settle on calling this one with more dark in her fur, Guildenstern.

Fire pit tester

March 12, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I was thinking of things to do for the cookout we have planned on the weekend. Being such a warm day today (we’re hovering around 0C), I wanted to do some more to prepare the fire pit area. I figured we may as well try something new, while I was at it!

While looking for ideas, I found the idea of wrapping the wiener in bread dough and cooking it over the fire; hot dog and bun, all in one. This is something we’ve done before in the oven, but not over an open fire.

When I was at the grocery store earlier today, I spotted some frozen dinner rolls, uncooked, and decided to cheat.

Continue reading →

Critter of the Day: he skulks

March 12, 2019March 10, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Ferdinand, skulking by the bird feeder.

Up and running again

March 11, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Well, I’m glad my brother has been as dedicated to taking in-progress photos as I have become! After emailing him about what happened to the snow blower, he was able to email me back a photo of exactly where the fuel line was supposed to go (something I could not really see without taking the cover off, but could find by feel). He told me I should be able to push it in, and confirmed that it was solidly in place, when he attached the fuel line to the carburetor. It seems to have vibrated itself out, which really shouldn’t happen.

Continue reading →

Well, that almost worked

March 11, 2019 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I went out to use The Beast. We haven’t had more snow, but I wanted to clear some paths that were blown over, widen a parking area, and make the path to the fire pit wide enough for my husband’s walker. We’re planning to have a cookout on the weekend. All this, I could do with the little electric snow blower, but is just much easier with the big beast.

Plus, I just wanted to use it, now that it’s running again.

Just look at that beautiful, shiny new carburetor! :-D

Of course, things just had to go wrong, right? LOL

Continue reading →

Critter of the Day: Beep and Company

March 11, 2019March 10, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

More photos from February, the next batch are of the outside cats, entertaining us out our living room window.

And the deer.

And keeping the birds off the feeder.

Critter of the Day: what a crowd!

March 10, 2019February 28, 2019 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

A couple more bird pictures from February.

Some days, we would get huge crowds of birds, all at once. They’d fly in and out, en masse.

When I was taking these, it was all redpolls and pine grosbeaks. There were so many, they seemed to have driven away the chickadees and blue jays. For a while, at least.