cold

Dropped off

/ Re-Farmer / 12 Comments

Well, Soot Sprite is at the vet right now, getting his nibs nipped.

While we are expected to reach a relatively mild -18C this afternoon, it was -23C with a windchill of -29C when I headed out to start the truck and let it warm up, first.

I am so grateful to have a garage!

Original source unknown.

Normally, we’d plug in the block heater if overnight temperatures are expected to drop below -20C. With the truck needing to have the cord replaced, I would have waited until the afternoon before going anywhere.

The truck started just fine, though, and had no issues with the drive in.

I was concerned the Soot Sprite might be too small for the procedure, but he weighed in at just over 5 pounds. With so many bigger cats, he feels like a feather. I honestly wasn’t sure if he was over 2 pounds, which is typically the minimum weight they prefer.

Oh!! I just got a text from the clinic! Everything went well and he is resting. Pick up time is at 2pm!

Considering no one else was there besides staff when I dropped him off, and I dropped him off a bit early, they most have got started on his as soon as I left!

One down, several more to go! The February spay clinic will have Soot Sprite’s siblings and The Beast (who is as tiny as he is) and Wolf Man (who is not tiny at all!). I’m more comfortable bringing The Beast in, now that I know Soot Sprite weighed what he did.

I wonder if I can get away with a nap before picking him up. I was awake most of the night. Butterscotch and Soot Sprite enjoyed being in my room, without the other cats. The other cats, unfortunately, where either clawing at my door, or all over my younger daughter as she tried to sleep.

I’ll try for a nap. I don’t want to be falling asleep while driving to bring Soot Sprite home!

The Re-Farmer

Winter fur, and updates

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Would you look at this gorgeous lady!

She still will not let us near her.

I want to burrow into that fur!!

I just got back in from morning rounds. We are at -27C right now, but the windchill is at -29C. I’d really love for those winds to die down! I had to clear a bunch of paths, not because we got much snow last night, but because the winds filled them in with hard packed drifts.

I got through to my mother about coming over today, and brought up about her saying she would be willing to climb into the truck. She told me she checked and has enough cash, so we can try when it is warmer.

So… spring??

No matter, for now. As long as I get her groceries. Going to the bank is the one thing I can’t do for her!

I want to talk to our mechanic, in person, about my mother’s car, but we won’t have any budget for repairs for a while. I’m considering putting the insurance on hold until we can get it in, which likely won’t be until the spring. The truck and other things have priority in the budget. After having to cancel my husband’s eye appointment at the last minute because we were at -30C with no block heater, my husband really wants to get that done.

Of course, it can’t be a generic cord. GM has their own cord with a built-in thermostat that has to be used. Generic ones won’t work right. Which I would prefer, anyhow. Our van had one of those, and I liked it. These cords shut themselves on and off as needed, so you don’t have it heating constantly. I just got a text this morning with an estimate. Replacing the cord will cost under $100. Replacing the block heater part, however, would cost almost $300. !! As far as we know, it’s just the cord that needs replacing, since finding the plug ripped off the end.

We are supposed to have a high of -16C, give or take a degree, and stay warmer than -20C for the next while before warming up above -10C. I’m quite looking forward to the return of the El Nino effect!

I’m sure the yard cats will be appreciating it, too!

The Re-Farmer

Not quite there, yet

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One more night, before the cold snap is dupposed to end, in our area.

I headed out to feed the outside cats and do partial evening rounds. We have reached our expected high of -20C, and are not expected to drop much lower overnight. The windchill, however, is -32C right now, and it’s expected to reach -37C overnight! While walking around the inner yard, there is a section that isn’t sheltered from north winds, and wow, what a difference! The winds have certainly increased, and we are supposed to get a light snowfall, too.

The cats are handling it well, and making good use of the shelter and sunroom. I did find they had somehow managed to unplug the heat lamp, though! The power bar is on the wall, on the far side of the platform, so reaching to plug it back in was a bit of a challenge. Even with it unplugged, though, the room was still around -10C. I made sure the lamp was pushing heat properly, before heading in.

Tomorrow our high is supposed to be -15 or -16C. I have some errands to run, and hope to head over to help my mother as well. I haven’t gotten through to her on the phone, yet. My brother spoke to her yesterday, and she had told him she is willing to try doing her errands in our truck! I do have the step stool, the truck has a step under the door, and the passenger side has a handle she can use to pull herself in. I’m willing to try it if she is, but my goodness, it concerns me! However, her car is out of commission, my sister isn’t able to come out, and my brother would have to plan ahead to arrange a day off work to help out with his car. So there isn’t much choice.

I hope it works out, because then I can get her to a doctor’s appointment, so she can get referred to a specialist. Errands, tomorrow, will be the test!

The Re-Farmer

It’s a bit nippy out there

/ Re-Farmer / 11 Comments

We have a clear, sunny sky that looks so lovely right now!

It’s a lie.

It’s warmed up a degree from before I started my rounds this morning.

Short rounds, today!

I went to dump the cat litter sawdust buckets this morning, which had been waiting overnight in the old kitchen. Half the contents were frozen to the sides.

The sunroom, however, never dipped below -15C on the wall thermometer. I should use the temperature gun one of these nights, and see what it’s like under the platform, where the cats pile up.

This is the entryway door right now. All three windows are like this. This would happen every winter for as long as I can remember, since this part of the house was added on. There is frost built up on the bottom, too. We had tried attaching a sheet of insulation to the outside of the door in the past, but the air pressure change between the doors when it was opened would tear it off.

Replacing these doors with modern, insulated exterior doors is on the list, along with the matching door in the dining room.

Right about when we win the lottery. *sigh*

Our temperatures are not much to complain about. Certainly not like in parts of Alberta, which I’ve read was the coldest place in the world, yesterday. Temperatures dropped below -40C in places, with windchills below -50C.

At those temperatures, propane is a solid, so those with propane heat were in trouble. EV vehicles, of course, died quickly and took forever to charge. People waiting for their vehicles to charge had to bundle up, rather than use their heaters, or it would take even longer. The province’s wind and solar weren’t producing power, and the government put out a grid warning, asking people to avoid using electricity as much as possible, including the use of space heaters. Saskatchewan started providing electricity to Alberta, to help out.

At these temperatures, the only things that work for home heating is electricity sourced from coal, nuclear or hydro, natural gas, or burning wood. All but hydro is actively discouraged – systemically punished, even – and Alberta doesn’t have the water systems needed to produce hydro electricity.

It’s a potentially deadly situation.

So… yeah. It’s a bit nippy out, but we have nothing to complain about!

The Re-Farmer

We’ll see

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I am so thankful we are not getting the severe cold that is hitting other parts of the country. As I write this, we are at “only” -25C, though the windchill is at -38C.

The sunroom is at about -5C, and overflowing with cats!

Today is supposed to be the coldest day, and the cold wave is expected to break on Monday.

After that, things are supposed to be much more pleasant!

What raises my eyebrows is the long-range forecast.

That’s right! Towards the end of the month, we are expected to reach -4C! That’s going to feel like spring!

Of course, it’s supposed to dip down again, but not by a whole lot.

We shall see how accurate that turns out to be. Especially around when we have to start making out trips to the city!

The Re-Farmer

Not the worst!

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

The snow continued through the night, so there was shoveling to do, when I did my morning rounds.

I wish I could figure out a practical way to keep the snow out of the kibble house!

With a north wind, you’d think the house itself would do the job, but it just whips around the old kitchen and sunroom, and right into the cat shelter area.

Thankfully, the sunroom and cat house are sheltered and warm. The thermometer in the sunroom was reading about -5C when I was done shoveling, with the doors left wide open. When I checked through the bathroom window during the night, it was just below freezing.

Right now, it’s -19C, with a wind chill of -27C or -30C, depending on which app I look at. Thankfully, we don’t get the brunt of North winds in most of the yard. Which is good, because my daughter is using little Spewie to clear the driveway right now. Best to get it done, while the snow is still light and fluffy. I can see her on the garage cam, but I can’t tell if the road has been plowed. It seems we have another package to pick up at the post office.

As I expected, we got the edges of the system, not the full brunt of it. Things were worse, further south. I don’t know how common this is elsewhere, but, like many prairie cities, there is a ring road around the city, so travelers can pass around, rather than through, the city itself. Last night, the entire ring road was shut down due to the weather.

From the local reports I’m hearing so far, though, the highways in our area are pretty good. The winds blew the highways clear, rather than the snow building up.

After this, we are expecting a mix of more average cold and above average mildness, if the long range forecasts ate anything to trust.

Oh! My daughter just came in. Time to let her know there is hot soup and hot tea waiting for her!

The Re-Farmer

A bit off…

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

The low for last night was forecast to be -25C, before starting to warm up.

We are supposed to be well into the “starting to warm up” part by now.

Almost 8am, and we are at -30C?? We are supposed to be closer to -23C by now.

That’s off by quite a bit!

I just checked the critter cam. There are surprisingly few cats in the sun room. I’m glad that heat lamp came in yesterday, though!

Hopefully, things will warm up a fair bit over the next few hours, since plugging the truck in, is not an option. At least it’s closed up in the garage!

I do wish we didn’t have to go out in this, for my husband’s eye appointment, but it wasn’t supposed to get this cold.

Well, time to bundle up and feed the outside cats!

The Re-Farmer

Yikes! And… oh, no.

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Our winter has been so very mild so far (yes, I know: on the calendar, it’s not officially winter, yet), so it was a surprise to see this, this morning.

-18C, with a wind chill of -22C!!! That is far colder than the forecast for overnight temperatures, last night!

We are expected to warm up to about -7C today. By the weekend, we are even supposed to go above 0C again! Talk about temperature whiplash!

The outside cats seemed all right, thankfully. I think I counted 33. Twenty of them were in the sun room! The smallest kittens were all accounted for.

For the past while, I’ve been getting away with doing my rounds with just a light jacket. A zippered hoodie, really. Today, it was a morning to break out the down filled parka!

Normally, when writing about temperatures, I include the Fahrenheit as well, but it’s not this time. I’m on my phone instead of my desktop. Usually, I have a temperature converter up in another tab on my browser. Can’t really do that on a phone.

I had just settled at my computer to start writing this post, when I started hearing an unfortunate repetitive noise coming out of the tower. So I shut it down.

It didn’t shut down.

I tried again.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

So I did a hard shut down.

Once I’m done this, I want to open up the case and see what I can see.

Crud.

My husband’s computer is toast. Since he tried to increase the RAM, something went wrong. Now, it won’t even boot. He thinks it’s the video card. The cheapest he can find for his machine is $700. If not the video card, it’s the motherboard. Those are cheaper. Neither is affordable. He’s been using his old work laptop. His computer is the newest one in the household, since his previous one did not survive the move. Mine is much older, and has been struggling of late. For how I use it, I knew was already needing to upgrade.

Desktop computers are really expensive these days. Even if all you need is the tower, and already have all the peripherals. Especially for a computer that can handle the graphics and video intensive uses we need. I suppose a laptop would be cheaper, but I hate laptops for general use. I’d just be hooking it up to my ergonomic keyboard and 27″ monitor, anyhow.

I’m really hoping my tower just needs to have the dust cleaned out or something simple like that, but… *sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Winter doesn’t want to let go

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

We are slowly coming out of what should be the last bitterly cold night of the winter. Last night, we dipped to at least -33C/-27F, with wind chills in the -40’s C/F The sun room, however, never seem to get much colder than -10 to -15C (14 to 5F).

The cattens took full advantage of that.

My husband got this picture through the bathroom window last night. From what I can see, there is only one adult in the pile; Broccoli.

As I write this, we’re coming up on 9am. My desktop’s weather app says we are at -28C/-18F still, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F The app on my phone, however, says we’ve warmed up to -26C/3F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F We should warm up a few degrees before I have to try starting my mother’s car. She and I spoke on the phone last night and already talked about rescheduling her appointment, if I don’t think her car would be safe to drive.

While getting bundled up before doing the outside cat stuff, I noticed something that is a first since we’ve moved here.

There is frost on the doorknob of the main entry door! We do have a sheet of insulation between the doors, but it doesn’t cover about 8 inches on the knob side of the door. We’ve got frost on the bottom, and on the windows, but I’ve never seed frost on the doorknob like this before. Not even last winter, when we didn’t insulate the door at all, since the hinges were a problem and we didn’t want to open it if we could avoid it.

I just realized that’s quite the reflection of me with my parka tucked under my arm! 😄

I had another surprise as I fought my way past the barricade of cattens under the old kitchen doors to feed them. Several of them were wanting to get into the old kitchen (which is colder than the sun room right now!), including one of the tabbies. We have several tabbies among the babies this year and, so far, only Judgement, a brown tabby, has been socialized.

This baby?

I got to pet him.

And I don’t mean just sneaking a pet while he (or she) was eating, only to have him run away. Nope.

After filling a couple of kibble trays, he was still spinning around at my feet, so I started petting him. He was a bit startled, looked at me in shock – then started pushing his head against my hand for more pets!

After that, food was more interesting, but I’m just amazed!

Also… I’m not sure who’s baby this is. We have a dark grey tabby that’s got a bit of white on him, and we have one that’s almost a black tabby, also with a bit of white on him. There’s also a big, fully grey tabby with more spotty markings from the oldest litter that I haven’t seen around for a while. This tabby is smaller.

I’m so losing track of all the cats, but…

Is this a new one?

Unlikely, but possible. The only reason I even suspect it’s a new cat is because I was able to pet it!

I didn’t even try to do a head count. Even the brief time I was outside the sun room was brutal.

Ah, the irony. My husband got me an early Valentine’s Day gift – heated gloves. They arrived at the post office, yesterday. I didn’t dare drive either of the vehicles to get the mail, so I’m leaving early to do it before going to my mother’s.

I’m going to have heated gloves, just in time for the end of the bitter cold!

The Re-Farmer

Keeping warm!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

We have been so spoiled by the mild winter we’ve had so far!

As I write this, it’s coming up on noon, and we have warmed up to -28C/-18F but the wind chill has gotten colder, at -40C/F (it’s the came in both Celsius and Fahrenheit at that point!). It’s bright and sunny out there, with clear skies. As I look out my window while writing this, I don’t see even a light breeze in the trees, but it doesn’t take much to drive the wind chill down at these temperatures.

When I went into the sun room this morning, the wall thermometer was at about -18C/0F, while outside it was at about -31C/-24F. I had made sure to top up the heated water bowl in the sun room yesterday the evening, and it was a bit less than half full this morning – with a sheet of ice starting to form on the surface! When unfastening the cord holding the doors propped open, just enough for the cats to squeeze in and out, I had to be careful not to touch the metal door handle for long with my bare hands. Tending to the outside cats was all I did out there this morning. The trail cams are probably frozen. With the sign cam, which is batteries only, it typically stops recording when the batteries get too cold, but starts up again as they warm up. It has fresh batteries, so it should be good. The solar powered trail cam is still on its first set of batteries, and they’re still showing as 100%. It’s in full sun, so it should actually be warmer than ambient temperature (the images include a temperature display, and it’s internal temperature is always at least a few degrees higher than the actual temperature). How it does in these temperatures will be the ultimate test for it. If it does well, we will be getting more like it, to replace the older ones that are starting to glitch out more often. We won’t be able to get the exact same camera, as they are no longer available, but there is a new version from the same company.

There was no way I was going out there to switch out the memory cards, though. Not today!

I didn’t even try for a head count with the outside cats, but the last I looked out the bathroom window, the swing bench was covered by a mass of multicoloured fur!

Even the inside cats are feeling it. Though I turned down the thermostat a bit, the furnace has been going almost constantly. That vibrating noise is sometimes there, mostly not. Of course, most of our heat vents has a cat on it. While tending the greenhouse aquarium, Fenrir wouldn’t even wait for me to put everything back before she was trying to climb onto the light fixtures – which were one on top of the other at the time! Once they were in place again, she settled right in.

Belly warmer!

She looks like such a Sphinx in that pose!

Beep Beep was also quick to climb on. Fenrir is actually looking at her, out of frame, sitting on the end of the fixture, trying to figure out why Fenrir is in her spot!

Those fixtures stay nice and toasty, and the more agile cats take full advantage of that.

That, and body heat. Especially upstairs. The girls have their heaters going, and usually several cats each, curled up against them all night long!

Meanwhile, I popped onto Facebook this morning, and saw a friend post a screencap of her weather app. At 8am, she was at 19C/66F.

She’s also just moved to Puerto Vallarta.

After living in the Yukon for several years.

Funny. I find I know an awful lot of Canadians who have either moved permanently South, or are planning to do so over the next year or two!

Days like today, I find myself thinking that sounds like a pretty good idea!

The Re-Farmer