Today, this 4th day of Christmas, came in bright, clear and bitterly cold!
Part of my morning routine, after feeding the animals, is to switch out the memory card on the trail cam, which I’ve found I can’t do with gloves or mitts on. It was -25C this morning, with a “feels like” of -32C.
Continue readingA chilly but beautiful morning.
Everything was all frosty!
Butterscotch, as usual, insisted I carry her while doing my rounds. Poor thing was just shivering! She even let me half-cover her with the down-filled coat I was wearing. Any more than half made her nervous. :-D
The Re-Farmer
One of my daughters let me know that the water bowl in the sun room was no longer on its heater, so when I had a moment, I went out with a pitcher of fresh warm water, heading through the Old Kitchen to fix it.
On opening the inner door, I noticed the food bowl in the sun room was empty, so I paused to grab some kibble to top it up.
Of course, as soon as I opened the door, there was a flurry of cats running out of the sun room, while others were running towards the Old Kitchen door. I saw Ferdinand run out, and then Slick headed for the door.
Except…
Wait a minute.
Is that Slick?
Thanks to Ferdinand staying in the doorway, preventing the other cat from getting out, I was able to grab a few quick pictures. I had to show it to my daughters to confirm.
This is not Slick.
What I did not see until my daughter pointed it out to me, not only is Ferdinand in the doorway, but Nicky the Nose is outside, looking through the window.
The new cat finally ran past Ferdinand when I opened the door. I never saw Nicky the Nose at all, but Ferdinand did not run off like he usually does. He actually hung around, watching me from just a few feet away, as I knocked the ice out of the outside water bowl and refilled it, as well as topping up one of the outside food bowls.
The water bowl was indeed knocked off the concrete block, but there was no spill. It was completely dry! With the outside bowl frozen over, they were very happy to have fresh water.
He has the saddest expression on his face!
My older daughter had been seeing a strange cat that was more grey than Slick, off and on, but this is the first time I’ve finally seen him. So he’s actually been around for a little while.
This brings us to 14 outside cats in total. The 6 kittens. Beep Beep, Butterscotch, Rolando Moon and The Hand are all cats we were feeding when we first moved out here. Slick, Nicky the Nose, Ferdinand, and now this guy. That’s basically twice as many as we were regularly feeding last winter.
No wonder we’re going through the cat kibble so fast! ;-)
The Re-Farmer
I wanted to share some images from a few days ago, when a fog rolled in, covering much of the prairies.
It resulted in some incredibly beautiful frost.
On the way home from town, my daughter tried to get some photos out the window. At one point, I was able to come to a near stop for a while, as she took photos of an old church. Which is when we spotted this guy. He was right in front of us, then dashed off towards the church, where my daughter managed to take a few pictures.
What a big, bushy fellow he was!
Now I can’t go near that intersection, without looking for foxes! :-D
The Re-Farmer
We have no idea where this cat came from, but I am so glad he (she?) found us, and chose to stay.
Just look at that face! So majestic! So…
At 4:30am, we got a weather advisory. A fog had rolled in, covering most of the province, with visibility dropping to near zero.
You know what that means?
Photo opportunities!
My husband got this first one, of frosty deer outside our living room window. Continue reading
Ooof.
What a long day today – and it’s not even 6pm as I write this!
The girls and I planned to head out early to the city, which meant I was out earlier than usual to do my rounds. The outside cats did not seem to appreciate me coming out so early to feed them! :-D The sun wasn’t even up yet, but what a beautiful sky! Continue reading
My daughter called me over and told me I needed to look out the bathroom window.
Were the kittens all being cute again?
Nope.
Ferdinand was.
He had been asleep when she saw him, but woke up when I used my phone’s camera to be able to see (ah, the joys of being short…).
He’s made himself right at home on there! The kittens don’t mind him at all, either. From what I saw earlier today, there may well be a kitten or three on the other side of the blanket over the box. They keep pulling the side down and covering the opening completely.
Strange. I just noticed. His nose isn’t the bright pink it usually is!
The Re-Farmer
While doing the rounds this morning, it was -25C (-13F), with a windchill of -32C! (-25F) out there!
When I went into the sun room to give the cats their food and water, I found this.
I thought, for a moment, that the light bulb might have burnt out, but nope. Continue reading
Just a few shots to share with you this morning.
I was going to say I caught The Outsider, mid-meow, as I was feeding the outside cats this morning, but he wasn’t actually meowing when I took this shot.
Too funny!
A couple of grosbeaks were trying to eat the frozen apples, left on this tree.
These apples won’t fall, even while being pecked apart by birds. No wonder I wasn’t able to knock down any more of them for the deer.
While I was taking this picture, I suddenly had a cat climbing up my front. Beep Beep decided that I needed to carry her while I was doing my rounds. She did let me put her onto a post, for a bit…
Just a bit. Then she jumped back on me, as soon as I got close enough!
While taking the photo, I realized why she always has one paw up like that. There isn’t enough room on the top of the post for all 4 paws!
She was aggressively cuddly this morning. :-D
We were able to make a trip into the city this morning, to finally visit my FIL. It’s been a while since my husband was up to the trip. The girls and I will need to head into the city again, soon – unusual for us to go that often, but we will be doing a fair bit of running around to various places on our next trip, in preparation for Christmas.
I’ll have to remember to pick up more cat kibble. It’s been less than a week, and we’re already finishing off one big bag!
Okay; so maybe we’re feeding a few more cats than last winter (13, compared to the 7 or 8 before).
And maybe we’re being a bit more generous on the quantities…
We are such sucks! :-D
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 