You know, I can handle the -27C/-17F temperatures. Bundle up enough, and the only real problem is my glasses frosting over.
But that -44C/-47F wind chill, I could do without!
My husband was a sweetheart and was able to feed the cats outside this morning, so when I headed out, I only had to feed the birds/deer. Smart kitties were nowhere to be seen when I came out.
We had been fully prepared to hunker down and stay close to home for the next while. It has turned out to be the complete opposite! On Monday, I took advantage of a warmer day to stock up on more cat kibble, picking up a few other things while I was at it. Tuesday, I had to go to the post office to pick up the packaging for the satellite pieces we needed to return to our old IP. Today, it was back to the post office to send them off, so we don’t have to worry about getting dinged almost $400 for them. I’d shovelled the end of the driveway yesterday, to clear out the old plow ridge before the plow came by and added to it. The plows didn’t come by, but the end of the driveway was drifted over. Driving right now is a game of “can you find the road?” Hopefully, the plows will be out today, because tomorrow, I have to go out again, this time to help my mother with her grocery shopping, using her little car which means we probably won’t be able to do the dump run we’d planned. At least her car is a four wheel drive. It also had butt warmers in the seats.
I’ve become spoiled by butt warmers. And heat vents that work. ;-)
Friday looks like it’ll be a day I can finally stay home, but Saturday will be the first day it’ll be warm enough and the winds are expected to die down enough, that it’ll be safe to do more shoveling. Maybe even break out little Spewie and do some snow blowing. Saturday is likely when we’ll finally be able to do a dump run.
I just want to stay home! :-D And to think, by the middle of the month, we’re supposed to warm up to -10C/14F I’m quite looking forward to it!
I can’t complain, though. Around this time last year, we were getting slammed by a Polar Vortex, both our van and my mother’s car froze, we were snowed in, and we ended up having to ask my brother to do some shopping for us in the city and bring it over, because we couldn’t get out to do it ourselves. His vehicle could handle the cold and snow, even though they don’t have a garage and their cars are out in the elements. So right now, I’m thankful that we actually can go out and about, even if I’d rather we didn’t.
Another item for the list when we win the lottery: new vehicles that can handle the cold! The last time I looked it up, the Ram 1500 and the F150 were the two top vehicles for that, and both can come with plow attachments.
Well, I’m certainly glad I did my extra shopping trip yesterday! A storm that was not in the forecast showed up overnight.
“Thank you for the warm water!” Nosencrantz says.
While it is still “warm” at -16C/3F, once we move out of the shelter of the house or trees, we got hit by the -36C/-33F wind chill!
My morning rounds today required doing some shoveling, which included shoveling out the driveway cam, so I could change out the frozen batteries, reset the time and date, and switch out the memory card. With the temperatures being what they have been, the chances our vandal would do something stupid are somewhat lower, so I didn’t switch out the memory cards during the deep freeze.
When uploading the files from this camera, however, it got very strange! The card supposedly had only 8 files on it, but when I tried to look at them, I saw this.
This has happened before, but just a few files, not anything to this extent!
Check out the “date modified” list. Apparently, our driveway camera is a time traveler! The dates range from 1980 to 2103!!
I have no idea what those files are, because I couldn’t even transfer them from the card, never mind look into any of those folders. There should be nothing but AVI video files on here.
Curious, indeed!
The corner cam by the new sign at least had some files I could check, before it froze and stopped recording.
While on the subject of our cameras, I got some news about the court date at the end of this month, about the suit our vandal filed against me in retaliation for my applying for a restraining order against him. The court office called and left a message; civil suits fall under the federal courts, so we get letters and phone calls. They don’t do that for provincial matters, which is what restraining orders fall under. I had to call them to find out anything. Anyhow. The court date is still on, but because our province has once again stepped up the police state we’re still under, the time has moved to the morning and it will be by teleconference. The dates will be rescheduled until our provincial dictators lift their boots off our necks a little bit. So who knows when this will get resolved.
Well, at least I don’t need to make the drive out at the end of the month. :-/ It’s supposed to get milder by then. We’ve got extreme cold warnings again, for the next couple of days. After that, we’re even supposed to get a day or two above -10C/14F!
As I write this we are at an almost balmy -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -34C/-29F, and we’re supposed to continue to get warmer over the next couple of days.
Remarkable how our ideas of “warm” and “cold” change, when living somewhere that has such temperature extremes throughout the year!
Yesterday evening, I’d treated the outside cats with a warm, meaty broth over their kibble top up, but this morning I found quite a bit of the kibble in frozen broth! It froze before the cats could eat it all, and the crowd of them was eating fast when I went back inside.
While the outside cats clearly don’t like the cold, they are doing quite all right, and spend a lot of time outdoors, instead of in one of the many shelters they have available for them. Seeing Chadicous exuberantly rolling on the snow sort of hits home how different the outside and inside cats are. It’s also a reminder of how important it is to let the outside cats develop their natural defenses against the cold. These are from generations of outdoor cats. They have the genetics to develop that insulating fur and body fat they need. Yes, they can still freeze, and having the heated cat shelter is a good thing, but it is equally important that it not be too warm in there, as that would seriously mess them up and potentially harm or kill them.
If our inside cats ever got outside in the temperatures we have now, most of them wouldn’t last more than an hour, even though most of them either started out as outdoor cats, or are from the same gene pool. Then there’s Fenrir. She has her long fur, but no undercoat, and that’s why we brought her indoors during her first winter. I don’t know where she came from or what breed she is, but it certainly wasn’t from any local cold-hardy genetics! A cat like David, with his long fur and deep, thick undercoat, would last longer, but having been in a warm house all the time, not even he would last long if he suddenly ended up outdoors. This is where going out through the sun room has its benefits, as it gives us two buffer zones, should the cats try to dash outside. Oddly, only Fenrir seems to actually be trying to do that. While other cats make a run for it, they’re more interested in exploring the old kitchen. Fenrir has managed to get as far as the sun room before we’ve caught her. In fact, going for the sun room door is the one sure way to get her out from under the couch in the old kitchen, or from behind the old wood cookstove, where we can’t reach her. I try to watch out for her before opening the door into the old kitchen, but it’s like she’s waiting for me. Many times, the moment that door opens, she appears out of nowhere and is in the old kitchen before I have a chance to react in any way. Knowing we’ll try to get her out, she immediately hides in places we can’t reach her. Sometimes, the only way I can catch her is to go into the sun room and leave the door open behind me. She always goes for it, and I can usually manage to catch her rather quickly after that.
When we win the lottery ;-) and can finally renovate this place, one thing I would want to keep and repair is all the doors between sections of the house, and add even more in places. None of this “open concept” stuff. :-D We once lived in a house that had doors between every room, including at the bottom of the stairs to the second level. I ended up really appreciating being able to so easily close off portions of the house, partly because it was even worse to heat than this one, and closing up rooms helped keep things warmer. We stopped using the second level completely in the winter, closed off the door at the stairs and added a draft blocker at the bottom to stop the waves of cold coming down. It was an awesome house, but yikes!
Ah, memories… :-D
Before I headed outside this morning, I saw deer at the feeding station. The usual doe and her little one, looking for any seeds the birds hadn’t finished off yet. I wasn’t at all quiet while setting food and water out for the cats, so it was a surprise when I came around the corner with feed and scared off two deer! I think they’ve gotten used to the routine, though. After putting feed out, I went back inside, and already could see the doe through the living room window. I quickly hung my coat, then went to watch when I saw the little one come bounding joyfully along the edge of the spruce grove to join Mom.
These two come back several times a day, now. Every once in a while we’ll see a buck but, so far, that’s about it. Later in the season, I expect we’ll start to see more deer coming by and will probably start to leave out more feed again.
I’ve left the remains of a sunflower there, because the birds like to perch on it. :-)
The 14 day forecast is interesting. Of course, it changes pretty much every time I check it, but the middle of the month is looking like it’s going to be quite mild! For all the cold we’ve been having in the last little while, this winter is shaping up to me so much nicer than the last couple of years, and a lot more like our 30 year average than the unusual cold we had during those polar vortexes.
We have been working towards being set up and ready, should we be stuck at home for weeks again, but this winter is looking like we’ll actually be able to get out and about like normal. No frozen vehicles! Hopefully, this will run through February, too. The way things are going, I’m hoping to pick up some (not-frozen) soil and maybe even a warming mat, to get some seeds started in our aquarium greenhouse. People in my cold climate gardening groups have already started things like peppers and tomatoes, but I’m mostly looking to start onions and shallots, first.
Plus, we still have to decide what seedlings or root stock we’ll be ordering this month for planting in the spring. :-)
After setting out food and warm water for the outside cats, I noticed a little face peeking at me from under the kibble house.
It wasn’t until I uploaded the photo that I saw there were three cats under there!
It’s a bit tight, but squeezing under there is a favourite spot for the smaller cats. Putting the sheet of insulation under there may have made it a bit tighter, but I don’t think they mind! There is also insulation under the floor boards of the kibble house, so they are insulated from above and below in there.
Which was sure needed, today! We were supposed to warm up a few degrees today, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. When I headed out, it was still -35C/-31F with a wind chill of -42C/-44F At least according to my app. We didn’t have any wind in the yard, so we at least didn’t have to deal with that. As I write this, it’s -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -40C/-40F. Our high of the day is supposed to reach -27C/-17F with a wind chill of -37C/-35F
A good time to celebrate New Year’s indoors!!! My FIL used to bring in the new year with a BBQ every year, even if it meant shoveling out the BBQ. We did keep that up for a while, but … no. :-D BBQ’s don’t cook very well in these temperatures, no matter how high you turn up the heat!
The critters seem to be handling the temperatures just fine. With the long, mild fall we had, the deer will have built up a good layer of fat for the winter. The deer in the photo above is walking in the path dug along the garden bed at the fence. It’s one of a pair that come here every day, several times a day, to the feeding station. They don’t leave much behind for the birds! :-D
Well, it’s time for me to get started on our New Year’s dinner. We’re doing a prime rib today; something I’ve never done before. Until we got our quarter beef, we’ve never been able to afford one before! I’m really looking forward to it. :-)
Happy New Year! And I hope you’re warm and toasty, wherever you are celebrating. :-)
I waited until things got warmer than -30C/-22F before starting my morning rounds. I guess the deer got tired of waiting for me, because I found them exploring!
I managed to get a picture through the windows of the front doors. They seem very interested in the kibble tray under the shrine! :-D
When I did get outside, my weather app said it was -27C/-17F, with a wind chill of -32C/-26F, and we’re still getting extreme cold warnings, but we were sheltered from wherever the wind was coming from, and it felt much warmer. Warm enough that I got the burn barrel going, then did some shoveling to widen paths enough for my husband’s walker.
The outside cats seemed to be enjoying the sunshine while I worked.
Nosencrantz is such a cutie!!! They were running around so much, I didn’t even try to count how many were at the kibble trays. I cleared their path from the kibble house to under the storage house again, too, and they really seemed to appreciate that! :-D The snow is deep enough to form sheltering walls for them.
It’s much more pleasant today than yesterday. My husband’s prescriptions were delivered yesterday. With all the bundling up needed to get outside after the driver called to let us know he was nearby, he actually reaches our gate before I can! My husband was exchanging his sharps containers this time, and I was going to give the driver the full ones, but he didn’t know anything about them. He normally isn’t allowed to take medications back, but he tried phoning the pharmacy to find out if that applied to sharps containers. He popped into his car to make the call, while I waited at the gate. Which, in retrospect, was not a good idea! Once at the gate, I was right in the wind. He didn’t take long, though, because he couldn’t get a signal.
And that’s why we get him to call us before he reaches our locked gate! :-D
We’ll just have to give the old sharps containers back to the pharmacy another time. The driver did try again once he had a signal and called me back. It turns out my husband hadn’t mentioned the returns when he called for his refills, so they weren’t expecting it. Normally, that means we’d be charged for the new containers, but it looks like they skipped that this time. Interesting. We still have to bring them over for proper disposal, but at least he has fancy new containers to use. They completely changed the design for them since we last had to get new ones.
Today, I only had to make a quick run to the post office to pick up some packages and some distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier. Happily, the van handled the cold fairly well, and all the roads are well plowed.
I’m glad to be inside again, though, that’s for sure!
I delayed heading outside for my (short version!) morning rounds. I figured the critters didn’t want to be outside any more than I did!
This was about half an hour before I got outside; -33C/-27F with a wind chill of -37C/-35F!
I’d topped up their food last night, so I knew there would still be some left by morning. However, when I saw the cats out there, anyhow, I figured there was no point in waiting.
I had to use the ice chipper to get the metal water bowls out. They were frozen to the ground and buried in snow. My daughters shovelled yesterday evening, which the cats – and deer – really appreciated, too. :-D
This is what we were at about an hour later. -31C/-24F, with a wind chill at -38C/-36F
Honestly, I can’t complain. This is warmer than what people have been getting out west! Plus, we’ll be warming up again and and staying just a bit lower than average temperatures for this time of year. For all the “extreme cold warning” we’ve got, we’re not breaking any records in our region.
It does mean my morning rounds are kept close to the house, though! As long as the critters are fed and watered, that’s the main thing, and not even our vandal is going to be out in this weather. :-D
I think this is a good time to catch up on my crochet.
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!
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. :-)
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.
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 