cold

A quick run

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I was going to make a quick run into town this afternoon, when things were supposed to warm up a few degrees.

While doing my morning rounds, however, I decided to head out right away, while the snow was still light and fluffy, and wouldn’t be too much trouble to drive in.

I counted 18 kitties this morning. :-)

Any tracks at the feeding station were filled with snow, but there were clear tracks going into the yard and up the sidewalk! I must have just missed them.

The critters definitely prefer to use our paths to walk in. :-D

I made a quick stop at the post office/general store first. The post office itself was closed, so I couldn’t pick up a package, but I did get a bag of deer feed, and a couple of bottles of wine for New Year’s that I hope are good. :-D

The plows weren’t out yet, and visibility was quite poor for the drive to town. I found myself catching up to a cloud of snow on the road, and only then could I make out part of the car that was kicking it up. It was driving at half the speed limit, and I had no urge to pass at all! It was a bit clearer for the drive back, but not by much. Thankfully, when I reached the gravel road, I found that half of it was plowed. I almost caught up to the plow before I had to turn down the road to our driveway. From what I could see, the highways weren’t plowed yet, so it was a surprised to see the gravel road being done, even if it was the main one that’s almost as wide as the highway. The road crews are going to be busy!

I didn’t have much to pick up at the grocery store, but I wanted to do it now, before things got colder. The snow is supposed to pass after today, but the temperatures are supposed to drop. We are now getting extreme cold warnings. As I write this, we are at -21C/-6F, which is a few degrees colder than had been forecast, so it looks like it would have made no difference if I’d waited to make my run into town. The wind chill is -26C/-15F. Overnight lows are supposed to reach -30C/-22F, with a wind chill of -40C/-40F. By tomorrow morning, it’s supposed to be -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -42C/-44F Looking at the long range forecast, though, that’s the coldest we’re expected to get until past New Year’s. Thank God we don’t need to go anywhere! In fact, all my family is able to hunker down close to home for the next while. Even my older brother isn’t going to work right now, as they are out of province, awaiting the birth of their newest grand child. <3 They made the drive out before the snow hit, so while it is quite a bit colder where they are now, they don’t have to commute in it!

Last night, I was able to treat the outside cats buy adding some warm (onion free) broth to their kibble trays. They were very excited about that! I’m going to see if I can have something warm for them tonight, too. They have plenty of places to shelter from the cold, but warm bellies will certainly help!

The Re-Farmer

Still celebrating!

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Of course, we’re into the 12 days of Christmas, now, so we’ll be celebrating until the Feast of the Epiphany, aka: Three King’s Day, on Jan. 6. :-)

Even the kitties get to celebrate with special treats from the kitchen. I’ve got more in the fridge waiting for them, too. :-)

We did our big dinner on Christmas Eve and I was planning to bring a turkey dinner to my mother’s on Christmas Day. My sister (who belongs to a denomination that doesn’t celebrate Christmas) brought my mother over to her place for a Christmas dinner. I’m glad she was able to do that, and that my mother was up to the trip. So I visited Mom today, instead. I still brought her a turkey dinner for later. When getting groceries for her for the last while, I noticed she hasn’t been getting any protein, so I brought her one of the 2 pound packaged of ground beef from our freezer pack, too. Since she’s just feeding herself, that should last her a while.

I am happy to say she really liked the crochet mushrooms I made for her!

She even commented on how much it looked like her drawings. :-) I’m glad she liked them. She had wanted them carved of wood, but it turns out she meant for the younger of my brothers to carve them for her. He does chainsaw carving out of repurposed cedar power poles. He makes really great morels, but I’m not sure how he’d have chainsaw carved porcini mushrooms using his tools and techniques! :-D

I’m glad I was able to visit her today. We’re getting heavy snowfall warnings for tonight, into tomorrow. It doesn’t look like the worst of it will reach as far north as we are. After that, the temperatures are supposed to drop quite a bit again, ranging between -20C/4F and -27C/-17F for the highs. Mostly closer to -20C. Still pretty average for this time of year. I will make sure to get another grocery trip for my mother in there, at least. I don’t want her to be going out in these temperatures, if I can help it!

It’s going to be a nice, quiet Christmas season for us, which is just how we like it. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Can I turtle, yet?

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Oh, man, I did NOT want to go out today!

Yes, we were a lot warmer than yesterday. Technically, it was -10C/14F when I went out to feed the critters.

Stepping outside was like being smacked in the face with ice. We have GOT to do something about that gap in the wind break from the south! I think the wind chill was at around -23C/-10F at the time, but it sure felt a lot colder.

Then it started snowing, and for a while, I considered rescheduling the shopping trip with my mother. However, we were supposed to warm up even more by this afternoon, and it’s supposed to be our last day warmer than -10C/14F for the rest of the year.

By the time I headed out, it wasn’t snowing anymore, but there was so much blowing snow, the highway disappeared for most of the distance. My mother’s car is such a light little thing, I was fighting the wind the whole way. At least the highway was otherwise dry and clear. The gravel roads and the streets in my mother’s town were icy, with drifts forming.

I made a point of putting some gas in her tank and grabbing some of her favourite chicken and wedges, and got there early. She had just come back from church and hadn’t started lunch yet, thinking I might just do that again. :-D So that worked out perfectly.

My mother was not actually feeling very well and had seriously considered skipping church this morning. It is right across the street from her place, though, so she did attend. By the time we were finished lunch, though, she decided to just give me her list and some cash, and I did her shopping for her. My mom is doing very well for 90, but she is definitely having a harder time of things. Especially in the winter! I’m extra glad I didn’t reschedule.

When I got home, I had quite the crowd, ignoring me as much as they could. :-D One of my daughters had just topped up the kibble trays. There are 13 cats in that picture, and I’m sure I saw at least 2 more at the window in their house. I must say, the outside cats are doing really well right now. There was a while when a lot of them were coughing and sneezing and had runny eyes, though none that had eyes that went blood red like Tuxedo Mask’s. Now, they are all hale and hearty. I think only Creamsicle Baby has a leaky eye still, and it’s been like that since he reappeared a couple of months ago. Some of the inside cats are still struggling with stuffy noses and sneezing, but they are getting better. Including Keith, which is a huge relief. I’ve been setting up the heated pad that we used while Ginger was isolated in the sun room, before and after his amputation. I think he remembered it, because he’s been using it fairly regularly. The others take their turns on it, and it’s not unusual for me to glance over and find three cats, with only their chests on the heating pad, enjoying the warmth. :-)

As much as I’d like to turtle, disappear into my shell and not go out again until next year, we’re going to have a few trips to make over the next few days. I even remembered to plug in the van and my mother’s car, just in case things turn colder than predicted.

We’ll have the quarter beef to pick up tomorrow, then I expect to go into the city the next day. I plan to do some gift shopping, so I intend to head out on my own, which means likely another trip before Christmas for the girls to do any last shopping they need to do. Hopefully, we will then, finally, not have to do any more long trips until after New Year’s.

I look forward to turtling.

The Re-Farmer

Feelin’ the chill!

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Though our high of the day is expected to be a relatively mild -17C/-2F, when I headed out to do my morning rounds, it was -22C/-8F.

The cats actually didn’t seem to mind it too much!

I counted only 15 this morning, though. I also got to pet the Distinguished Guest a bit.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much of a wind child, but even so, changing the batteries on one of the trail cams this morning was not fun! I had fingerless gloves, at least, but my goodness, the tips of my fingers were feeling the chill by the time I was done!

Tomorrow (Sunday)_, we’re supposed to warm up to -7C/19F, then it’ll drop right back down again. Monday is supposed to be -18C/0F, but the wind chill is supposed to reach -27C/-17F.

I’ve got word from where we ordered our quarter beef, that they will be getting cuts from the butcher that morning, so we are now scheduled to pick ours up at 5pm. We will be doing a bi city shopping trip next week. This is intended to be our January shopping trip, so we don’t have to try and do it at New Year’s. Thankfully, CPP Disability always comes in early in December, so we can do that. When it was arranged to pick up the meat at 5pm, I considered heading into the city in the morning, but it’ll be much colder that early in the day, so I think I’ll put that off until Tuesday. It’s much closer to Christmas than I would like. I dislike shopping at the best of times, but around Christmas and New Year’s is the worst. However, it needs to be done. Our van does not like the cold, so if I can save the trip for when it’s a few degrees warmer, I’ll wait. Yes, we do have my mother’s car as a back up, but it’s not big enough for our city shopping trips. Especially with all the bags of cat food! :-D

I look forward to a time when we are so well stocked, we can skip the city shopping trips more most, if not all, of the winter!

The Re-Farmer

Wind chill

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Oh, I am extra glad we don’t need to go anywhere, tomorrow!

The -21C is not too big of a deal.

The wind chill at -35C is a whole different story!!

That’s -6F with a wind chill of -31F, for those of you in the US.

On the plus side, tomorrow’s predicted high is now -17C/1F tomorrow, which is a few degrees warmer than previously forecast. Looks like the cold swept in faster than expected.

By Thursday, we are supposed to warm up to -1C/30F.

It’s like temperature whiplash!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: just a bit

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I’m really glad we were able to plug power back into the cat’s house, when we couldn’t do it through the sun room any more. Temperatures have dropped, and while we are reaching above freezing during the day, it’s getting quite a bit colder overnight.

Since it’s too cold to continue with the clean up, when I was finishing my morning rounds, I decided to move the poles closer to the house and the garden area, so they will be handy when it’s time to start building the trellises and supports.

This gave me the opportunity to somewhat sort them by size. While I deliberately chose our winter squash to be smaller, shorter season, varieties, they will still need very sturdy supports, as will the gourds. While all of these will be temporary, they still need to be strong enough to hold a fair bit of way, and sturdy enough to not blow over in high winds.

We haven’t even decided on what form these supports will take, yet! But at least we’ll have ample materials, and can figure things out as we go.

The Re-Farmer

Welcome to March!

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Can you believe this???

These are the temperatures, screencapped just minutes before I started this post.

That’s right. We’re at -28C/-18F with a wind chill of -32C/-26F. Actually, the wind chill was reading at -35C/-31F when I did the (short version!) morning rounds! I only saw Potato Beetle when I opened the sun room. Not a single other cat came out. He was more than content to let me put him back in the sun room and close the door!

This isn’t another Polar Vortex. This is Nature saying, “Welcome to March. Here’s a kick in the teeth for ya!”

In less than an hour from now, I’ll be leaving to bring the van in to get looked at. This isn’t an appointment. This is a drop off so he can look at it in between his appointments. Which means I have to hang out in town for who knows how many hours, until he’s had a chance to check it and gives me a call. And because of the flippin’ Schrodinger’s virus restrictions, the only place I can go to is the grocery store across the street, because there isn’t a coffee shop or restaurant or anywhere indoors where anyone can just sit anymore. Keep in mind that this municipality hasn’t had a single case. Nor has ours. Nor has the municipality my mother lives in. There was only one person who turned out to have a false positive in the entire area, back in the summer. In fact, in looking at the official government stats for all cause deaths in this province, the pandemic never hit us. 2020 is indistinguishable from any year from 2014 on.

And get this. Tomorrow?

We’re supposed to reach a high of 2C/36F

The Re-Farmer

Winter is not quite done with us, yet

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After getting teased with spring, the temperatures lurched back downwards last night.

Also, I am SO tired of our intermittent internet. It took me forever to get any of my weather apps to load! We’ll be able to switch back to the primary account soon. Hopefully, that will be better again. :-/

As I write this, we’re still at -24C/-11F, but the wind chill has “warmed” up to -33C/-27. It was pretty steady like that, all night.

I am really looking forward to that 6C/43F two Sundays from now!!

While doing my rounds this morning, I opened up the sun room to let Potato out for a bit, if he wanted. Along with the warm water, I had a treat for the kitties. I’d kept the meat juices and dregs from a roasting pan. Usually, I’d use it as part of the liquid for a soup, or make a gravy out of it, but this was onion free, and safe for cats. The juices had gelled, so I added warm water to melt it and brought it out for the cold kitties.

They were so excited for the treat!!! Cats that would normally stay away from each other were all pushing their way into the bowl, ignoring the container of warm water they usually go for, while I knocked the ice out of the water bowls. With the temperature fluctuations, the metal bowls are in melted depressions of ice, and I had to use a chipper to get one of them out! LOL

I was happy to see that the terrarium heat bulb was enough to keep Potato Beetle’s water from freezing. There was just a bit of ice on the water surface furthest from the bulb.

Once the water was taken care of, I fought some kitties off the bowl of meat juices and split it between the various food bowls. More room for more cats to have a treat! The very last bits in the bowl, which had chunks of meat in it, went into Potato’s bowl in the sun room. He had gone outside after I’d opened the door, but it didn’t take much for him to go back in! We are a bit concerned about him being alone and lonely in there, but he seems to be content over the whole situation.

I tried to get a picture of his wound, but he wouldn’t stay still, so this was the best I could get! Now that the fur is shaved, we can see that it’s a rather large puncture wound – and there is a smaller one, next to it! It’s drying up and scabbing over nicely, though. We’ll keep Potato in the sun room for a few more days. Once it warms up again, it should be okay for him to be outside with his little nekkid patch.

I’m not sure what we’ll do if he wants to stay in the sun room, though! We’ve tried propping the doors open, but then we caught Nicky the Nose in there, asserting his dominance. :-(

I wonder if that old sling shot I found in the garage is still usable… :-/

Since Potato was content in the sun room, I closed him up again and continued my rounds.

I had lots of company.

I had five of them! Butterscotch and Nostrildamus, the spice boys and Rolando Moon, all came along.

Then I turned around and there was number six.

Creamsicle Jr. many not want us coming anywhere near him, but that doesn’t stop him from following me around!

Unfortunately, this lurch into colder temperatures has been very rough on my husband’s pain levels (the added medications are helping, but not much at this point), and this morning, his TENS machine just stopped working. It seems one of the wires has … broken? I don’t know. He’s in a lot of pain, so his tolerance to try and figure it out is out the window. It’s an older machine, so I don’t know if we can get new wires for it anymore. The plug in port is universal, so we should be able to. I’ll have to do some looking.

But it will wait until later. I just got a call from my sister in law. She’s dropped my brother off to see my mother, and is on her way to deliver the pressure cooker! Time to go open the gate. :-)

The Re-Farmer

You bet, I’m procrastinating!!!

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I might wait just a bit longer. I’m sure the critters won’t mind staying sheltered a bit longer, either.

The temperatures plummeted last night! It’s now almost 10am as I write this, and it’s still -27C/-16.6F with a wind chill of -35C/-31F out there.

The app on my phone says we’ve already “warmed up” to -25C/-13F with a wind chill of -28C/-18.4F

It’s supposed to continue warming up but we won’t be getting warmer than -20C/-4F for a few more hours. So I’m going to have to get out there and get some warmer food and water for the outside cats soon. There will still be both food and water out there right now. I just want to make sure they have some that is a bit more pleasant to ingest!

The plan for today was supposed to be clearing enough snow in the yard to drive the van to the house tomorrow, so we can load it up and make a trip to the dump. We haven’t been able to make that trip in way too long, but with temperatures like this, it might have to wait again. :-( We could postpone clearing the snow in the yard until tomorrow, but the dump is open for only a few hours in the morning on Tuesdays, and it will probably be closed by the time we’re done. It’s supposed to reach an absolutely tropical -7C/19.4F tomorrow, bringing a couple of centimeters of snow along with it.

Yeah. I think we’ll do the clearing tomorrow afternoon and make the dump run when it’s open again on Thursday evening. They are open for a full 8 hours on Saturdays, but that’s New Year’s Day, so they’ll be closed this weekend.

Definitely one of the downsides of living in the boonies. Maybe this explains why we’re finding so much garbage as we clean up around the farm!

The Re-Farmer

Cat perch

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I can tell how much milder the temperatures have gotten these past few days, but how many of the outside cats I see when I do my rounds in the morning! I saw 9 of them this morning, including Rolando Moon, who has been away for a week or two, but showed up yesterday.

I had 5 cats following me when I went to check on the gate. When I came back to the house, I had this surly face to greet me.

We had brought several pieces of the maple that I’d cut away from the roof of the old chicken coop to the house, for future wood working projects. They’re odd shapes and keep falling over.

The cats really like them, and Rolando Moon seems to really appreciate having a relatively warm perch to sit on, out of the snow!

She is such an ornery old cat. I love her! :-D

The Re-Farmer