Critters

That’s just deep, Man!

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Well, relatively speaking.

Still, the snow is deep enough that the deer were struggling to get through. They were very happy to find the paths we’ve dug!

I spotted about 11 outside cats this morning. Potato Beetle came out of the sun room when I went out to make sure the deer coming into the yard weren’t going for the kibble. He happily went back in when I finished my morning rounds.

After feeding the critters, I started to do a bit of shoveling on the main paths. While clearing in front of the sun room, I accidentally caught the shovel on something, making a loud noise, startling the cats in the kibble house. There was an explosion of cats as they all ran off.

Except Ghost Baby, who took advantage of the situation, planted herself in a kibble tray and kept on eating!

That is so completely the opposite of how she has been in the past. Before, if you so much as looked directly at her, she’d ghost away. I think she’s finally learning that it’s safe to eat while we’re around.

One of the potential plans for the day was to take little Spewie out and start clearing the driveway. I’m not so sure if that’s happen, though. It’s going to be another chilly day, but it’s more an issue of wind. Things are supposed to be calmer tomorrow, but also warmer, which means the snow blower is more likely to struggle with the snow. *sigh* Still, it needs to get done.

I’ve heard from my brother that my nephew and his family are still making the drive out. The highways are open all along their route, so they’re going for it. I do wish they’d just cancelled. He is confident in making the drive, though. They should arrive late tonight. I figure, if they are willing to make the trip, the least we can do is clear our driveway so that I can drive my mother out to meet her newest great-grandbaby!

Whether the snow blowing happens today or tomorrow, when that’s not being worked on, we’ll be going through the seedlings. Some of them, like the Crespo squash and the second planting of Wonderberry, are outgrowing their starter pots. I picked up larger versions of the pots that can be just buried in the ground when it’s time to transplant, so we’ll be able to pot them up with little to no root disturbance. We might have some space issues, not just for the bigger pots, but their heights. Looking at the long and short range forecasts, though, we should be able to start putting more pots in the sun room. How well the one Wonderberry plant is doing is quite encouraging. It makes me wonder if the thermometer on the wall is reading on the cold side. It’s right against the wall, and one of the window’s it is above lost its inner pane before we ever moved here, so it might be reading temperatures that don’t reflect other parts of the room.

Oh, I totally forgot to take a picture! I’ll have to go back later. The Wonderberry in the sun room has actually started to bloom! With the sun room being so much cooler than inside the mini-greenhouse, I’d thought it would slow down in growth, but it seems to be quite enjoying the condition in the sun room, and thriving!

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not, for a Wonderberry to be blooming already. We won’t be able to transplant it outside for at least another month! There are no pollinators for it. Which means I should probably prune the flower buds off, so its growth can focus on foliage.

Not until I’ve taken a picture of the pretty white flowers. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Like Mother, Like Daughter

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Don’t let those sweet faces and adorable loaf shapes deceive you!

These two buggers can be real beeeyotches! Especially to each other! One moment, they’ll be all sweet and cuddly, the next, they’re picking fights.

We love them anyway.

The Re-Farmer

More digging, and I’m a suck

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We got a break in the snow, so I went outside to do some more digging. All the paths I dug this morning, plus what my daughter dug out, had to be redone, as they were already filling with snow and, in a couple of places, were drifted over.

The main goal was to be able to get to the garage.

Unfortunately, right in front of the garage is where it tends to build up with extra snow blown off the roof.

And I needed to dig out the far set of doors.

Which I did. Both doors can be fully opened, to access the equipment inside.

Which is basically little Spewie. My thoughts of trying to fire up the old gas power snow blower disappeared rather quickly. Since it wasn’t working, it got shifted to the back and never got shifted forward for the winter, so it is blocked by the push mowers, the broken riding mower, the chipper, and little Spewie.

Which I won’t break out until tomorrow. That little thing takes a long time to do the job, partly due to the small size and partly due to having to drag 200 ft of extension cord behind me, to be able to reach the road.

That thing was made to clear things like short sidewalks, not entire country driveways! :-D Still, it does the job quite well, and sure beats trying to manually dig out the driveway. Thank God our driveway isn’t very long!

I didn’t realize until I was inside, that I forgot to get a picture of the main sidewalk, so I took this photo from inside the house.

Yes, the snow was coming down again by then!

To get this photo, I opened the inner door of the main entry, reminding myself of why we don’t use that door anymore. I’d really hoped my fix would last longer (if you’re new to the blog, you can read about how that was done here, here and here), but I’m not bothering to take off the hinges to find out what happened. The entire door and frame needs to be replaced, so there’s no point in trying to fix it again.

Meanwhile…

I am a total suck when it comes to the cats.

When I first headed out this morning, Potato Beetle managed to dash into the sun room when I opened the door. I left the doors partly open so he could come out and have some food once I cleared the kibble house. He didn’t come out, so I left a bit of food for him in the sun room.

I came back later to check and didn’t see him, but I did startle Rolando Moon off of my husband’s walker seat. :-D

It’s a very comfortable seat.

Thinking Potato Beetle was out, I closed up the doors, since we’ve got plants in there and I didn’t want it to get too cold, then continued digging. Coming back in later, I found him tucked in a corner under the swing bench. So I left him be, and made sure he had food and water.

When my daughter went outside to dig some more, I checked the sun room again. I thought he went outside after her, only to catch a glimpse of him.

He was in the plant shelf.

On the tray under the small light fixture that we’re using as a minor heat source for the plants above. He was actually wrapped around the fixture!

Every now and then, I’d check on him to see if he was ready to go out. After a while, he moved away from the fixture, but still next to it. When I went out to dig again, I found him one shelf down.

He is absolutely content in there.

So I made sure his food and water was topped up, then dragged out the extra litter box and put some litter in it. And made sure the box bed with the pillow in it was handy. He can stay in there all night, if he wants to.

Because I am a total suck for the cats.

Oh, yeah… while digging out the snow that drifted around the kibble house again, I also dug out the cat path to the storage house, too, so it’ll be easier for the cats to get to and from the kibble house.

Did I mention I’m a suck for the cats?

Yeah. I totally am.

The Re-Farmer

The digging begins

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Checking the weather this morning, my app told me we were still snowing. Which was a surprise to me, since I couldn’t see any snow falling out our window! :-D Eventually, looking out a window with dark tree trunks in the background, I could finally see the tiniest of flakes.

There were 394 emails of images from the garage cam waiting for me this morning. It would have been more, except I made sure to clear the inbox before going to bed. From the looks of it, the heaviest snow stopped hours ago, but with the infrared flash, all it takes is a single snowflake to trigger the camera to take an image and send it to me.

Though I did see at least one with deer image, that happened while I was outside, digging.

There was a drift in front of the sun room door, but I was able to open it wide enough to get through. It’s a salvaged door, so I stopped opening it as soon as I could hear it cracking! LOL

The main thing was that I could get out and get to where the snow shovels were sitting. I’d even thought that I could put one in the sun room, yesterday, but completely forgot to actually do it!

The first job would be to dig my way to the kibble house. Unfortunately, the way the winds swirl around this corner of the house, a drift forms right under the kibble house roof and snow gets into the kibble house itself.

We were supposed to build a smaller version of this for the water bowls. We really need to get that done for next winter. With the three structures around each other, they should shelter each other and keep this from happening. At least, not as much as happens now.

While I was shoveling, some kitties patiently waited for their kibble!

There was a lot more snow inside the kibble house than I expected!

Once that was clear, I made sure to set out the food and water before continuing on, so they could have a chance to eat.

That drift between the kibble house and their shelter is right on top of a kibble tray. That was my next goal.

As soon as it was clear, I added more food for the kitties that are too shy to go into the kibble house. Then it was time to dig a path to the shrine and uncover the kibble tray there, for the even shier cats.

That took a lot of digging. This one needed an ice chipper, as the chunks of old snow underneath had frozen.

The main issue with all the digging, however, was the snow itself. It’s still relatively warm for such things, so the snow is fairly wet. Not only did that make for heavier snow, but it was sticky. I’d throw a shovel full, and half the snow would stick to the blade. I’d have to knock it off, then shovel it away again.

The kitties fed and watered, it was time to turn my attention to the next path.

I needed to dig my way across the south side of the house, then to the feeding station, before I could leave feed out for the birds and the deer.

The deer were not as patient as the kitties!

Look what I found!

I’d put our winter sowing experiment in the snow on the south side of a path, originally, but as the snow melted and became less stable, I moved them here, and they got completely buried.

I didn’t take the snow off the top. I figure it’ll melt into the containers a fair bit, through the open tops and the air circulation holes on the shoulders. I’m also not bothering to dig out the rest of the concrete stairs yet, since we’re not using that door.

This is how the south side path looked when it was done. I also dug out the well cap.

On the south side, I dug a path as far as the lane that was cleared for the septic truck to get into the yard. As amusing as it is to show how deep the snow it along the paths, this is a more accurate representation of how much snow we actually got.

I’d say, about 8-10 in/20-25cm, at most.

I didn’t dig the rest of the way to the compost heap. We can get through that with our boots, and it’s going to all melt away fairly soon, anyhow.

The path along the east side of the house was mostly blown completely clear, even as the snow drifted into the lilacs and cherry trees. Even the low sloped roofs on the east side of the house were blown clear of snow.

Clearing this path went MUCH faster! :-D

The snow drifted over where I usually put seed, under where a bird feeder should be hanging, but I didn’t bother clearing that. I dropped the seeds on the exposed grass, closer to the house.

I’m sure the birds and deer will be fine with that. ;-)

The snow was coming down harder by the time I was done, though it’s slacked off again. The next path to dig is the path to the garage, and maybe to the burn barrel.

That’s something the girls will take care of, later.

Once that’s done, we’ll have an idea of whether or not we can get out of our driveway. I’m seriously considering trying to start that old gas powered snow blower again. If we could get that going, we could clear the driveway. If we can’t… well, we’ll see how things go over the next few days. If it’s not too deep, I might break out little Spewie. The temperatures over the next while are supposed to remain below freezing, light snow is supposed to continue through tomorrow, and we’re even supposed to get a bit more snow on Easter Sunday, so it’s not like anything is going to be melting away anytime soon.

It sucks that this happened over the Easter weekend, when we actually want to get out and get together with family. If it weren’t for that, I’d be just fine with getting all this extra moisture. Once it does finally melt away, it should be great for when it’s time to plant our garden!

The Re-Farmer

Storm Status, and Easter baking

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Well, it’s certainly snowing and blowing enthusiastically, out there!

That hasn’t stopped the birds from enjoying the suet feeder.

The driveway is so white right now, it’s messing with the camera’s ability to “see” it, making for some interesting rings of colours on there.

I took this screencap of the weather app on my desktop, just minutes ago. According to this, the worst is still yet to come. It is still conflicting with what’s showing on the weather radar.

Well, it will be what it will be. My main concern is with the high winds, of course. When this is over, we’ll have to do a walk-about to see if any more dead trees have come down, or what branches have fallen.

From the looks of the weather radar, the most severe conditions are hitting the US, as the system sweeps across the Eastern states. I hope those of you living in those states are keeping safe!

While it’s snowing and blowing, we got some bread baking done.

A two-loaf recipe was divided into four small loaves. The prettiest one will be for our Easter basket.

Since I was baking bread anyhow, I made a batch of oatmeal bread, also divided into four small loaves instead of two regular loaves. That way, we get a loaf each. :-D

I’m looking forward to having one of them with a big bowl of chili, once it cools down enough. :-)

The Re-Farmer

The cuteness

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Okay, enough talk about snow and storms!

Let’s talk kitties.

Adorable kitties.

And nasty kitties! :-D

Ginger and Turmeric were so cute, making sure I couldn’t get at my pajamas last night. :-D

As I write this, Turmeric is at the corner of my bed STARING at Nosencrantz in her cubby hole behind my nightstand. Not in a friendly way, either. :-(

We are still closing Nosencrantz and Butterscotch up with me for the night. That’s when they come out and relax, eat and drink, use the litter box (I think I finally got that set up so Nosencrantz will actually use it, and not crap on the carpet!), and even play. Butterscotch is then more than content to return to her bed in my shelf, but I now wake up to find Nosencrantz sleeping next to me.

This morning, I rolled over and stretched my arm out, so she slithered over, putting her head in my hand for skritches, then began to roll around, luxuriously.

Rolling herself right off the edge of the bed, with a thud!!!

Poor thing!

She didn’t come back.

Later, I found her on the window sill, possibly watching deer. When I opened the door to go to the washroom, cats immediately began pouring in, faster than I could stop them, so I just let it be.

Nosencrantz was not happy.

This is her partially in her “I’m so cute, please don’t hurt me!” position. She curls her head right down and sideways, looking up at whatever it is she’s viewing as a threat at the moment.

Which was this, at the time.

For some reason, Fenrir does NOT like Nosencrantz, but at least she was just sitting in one of her favourite spots on my shelf and just watching, not going after her.

Turmeric is another one that actively dislikes Nosencrantz (though, to be honest, she can be a real b*** to other cats as well. Much like her mother! LOL). Turmeric was sitting on top of my jewelry box, which the cats use as a step to get onto the windowsill from my vanity, staring at Nosencrantz from one side, while Fenrir was glaring at her from the other.

I did actually pick up Nosencrantz to move her away from the cats, but she jumped out of my arms and right back to the windowsill, so I let her be.

As much as I will miss Nosencrantz when she is adopted out, I think she really needs to be in a home with fewer cats. Or no other cats at all. She seems to prefer human company.

Which we don’t mind giving her at all! She’s such a soft, round potato of a cat, and incredibly placid when you pick her up. Like a Ragdoll, she just droops. She will make some lucky human a very lovely companion.

The Re-Farmer

Incoming

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Man, monitoring this storm has been just a wild world of confusion.

I have a weather widget on my phone that has animated weather in the background to match current conditions. When I looked at it, first thing this morning, it was snowing. Opening the app, there was a message saying heavy snowfall will continue for at least an hour and a half.

What was out my window?

Nothing. Not a flake in the sky.

The edge of the storm was supposed to reach us around 3am, with blizzard conditions by 10am. We had no snow at all last night.

Looking at the weather radar, we had that remarkable bubble over our area again. The storm’s edge was swirling around us, but not on us.

Yet.

So I quickly bundled up and headed outside to do my morning rounds – spotting two deer walking through the West yard when I got into the sun room.

The sun room seems to have stayed just above freezing overnight. The Wonderberry, which is by itself at one window, where it’s colder, seems to be doing just fine. I did move it away from the window a bit more. It’s not going to get much light today, anyhow, and the closer to the window it is, the colder it is.

By the time I got outside, the first flakes were starting to fall. The winds were already quite high, though, so it was no surprise that only a few cats came out for food. I did move a small dish of food just inside the entrance to their cat house, though. Potato Beetle was the only cat in there when I started putting the food out. As overcast as it is, the light sensor on the timer should be triggered to turn on the ceramic heat bulb, so it should be nice and warm in there.

In the time it took me to put feed out for the birds and deer, put the container back in the sun room, and come back around the corner on my way to the sign cam, there were at least 4 deer at the feeding station already. They got startled and ran off into the trees, so I’m not sure, exactly.

It didn’t take them long to come back!

Snow was starting to come down a bit harder by the time I very quickly did my morning rounds. Those winds, though! We’ll have to keep an eye out for falling branches and trees. As I sit here, writing this post, I can watch the snowfall increase and the visibility drop on the garage cam live feed. The driveway and paths that had been exposed ground are now white with snow.

The weather alerts have changed, of course. The south of us is getting the brunt of the storm. The system is splitting up and swirling in two directions; the snow is being pushed to the northwest, across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, while the rain is being pushed to the east, across Ontario and Quebec. The rain part of the system looks like it’s going to be more severe than the snow part.

The alert is now saying that south of us is getting the brunt of the storm basically now, but not as much snow as expected. Our area is supposed to now get the brunt of the storm tonight and into tomorrow.

Except.

As I watch the weather radar, it looks like we’ll still be getting the brunt of the storm… now, bascially, and over the next couple of hours. Then it looks like it’s clearing up. The system should be clear of our area, continuing North and West, by about 3:30pm.

If I look at the hourly forecast, this afternoon will actually have wet flurries, but where I earlier saw predictions of 5-10cm/2-4in in one hour, over a couple of hours, I’m now seeing ~1cm or >1cm every hour through Thursday.

That’s with The Weather Network.

AccuWeather is telling me we are having “heavy snow” right now (it’s snowing, but I’d still call it flurries at the moment), while the hourly forecast is saying much the same as the other; about a centimeter – less than half an inch – per hour. The “looking ahead” note says “A snowstorm continuing into Friday morning with blizzard conditions today and storm total accumulations for 40-60cm.” This is supposed to be for our area, not the entire region the storm is crossing.

A lot of mixed messages.

So…

I look out the window, or watch the garage cam.

The snow is definitely getting heavier, though still nowhere near what I would call “heavy snow”. In past storms we’ve had this winter, when we have heavy snow, the garage cam gets whited out. We’re not there yet.

I’m watching the maple branches outside my window, and when those gusts hit, you can really tell!

But we are safe and warm inside, the outside cats are fed and should be cozy in their favorite hidey holes about the property by now.

Yesterday, we started pickling eggs for our Easter basket. Today, my goal is to bake the Easter bread.

For now, though, it’s a good time for another cup of strong, black tea!

The Re-Farmer

Watching the radar

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Things are still looking pretty good out there, though the daytime temperatures are definitely on the colder side. The storm alerts remain, with snow predicted to start in the wee hours, tonight. The local “looking ahead” notification on my phone’s app now reads, “A snowstorm from late tonight into Friday afternoon with blizzard conditions tomorrow and accumulations of 40-60 cm.”

That’s 16-24 inches. Yesterday, the high end of the local prediction was up to 45cm/18in.

The main alert has changed a bit. I no longer see the warning for up to 80cm/31in in some areas.

Winter Storm Warning

Issued at 04:27 Tuesday 12 April 2022

Hazardous winter conditions are expected.

Major spring storm poised to wallop southern Manitoba beginning overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning and lasting until Friday morning. Widespread snowfall accumulations of 30-50 cm accompanied by northerly winds gusting 60-70 km/h giving zero visibility at times in snow and blowing snow.

A Colorado low will move towards Minnesota Tuesday night bringing a heavy swath of snow through most of southern Manitoba. The snow will start early Tuesday evening near the International border then push northward throughout the night. By Wednesday morning heavy snow will be falling in much of the area as the storm continues to push northward. Strong northerly winds will develop with this system and persist into Friday morning as the low slowly pivots through Minnesota on it’s way into northwestern Ontario.

For the City of Winnipeg and points southeastward, a break in the snow may occur on Wednesday afternoon or evening before snow re-intensifies overnight into Thursday. 15 to 20 cm is likely by Wednesday afternoon, with a further 15 to 20 cm likely with the second area of snow overnight Wednesday through Thursday and Thursday night.

By Friday morning, widespread snowfall accumulations of 30 to 40 cm are likely.

Travel will become increasingly difficult as the day progresses Wednesday, with widespread highway closures a near-certainty. By Wednesday evening even travel within communities may become impossible as the heavy snow and strong winds continue… and more of the same is expected on Thursday.

Do not plan to travel – this storm has the potential to be the worst blizzard in decades. Stock up on needed supplies and medications now. Power outages are likely, rural areas in particular should be prepared for extended outages.

Conditions should begin to improve on Friday as the winds taper off and the heaviest snow moves into northern Ontario…although the clean-up after this storm will likely last well into next week.

###

Rapidly accumulating snow will make travel difficult. There may be a significant impact on rush hour traffic in urban areas. Heavy snowfall accumulation combined with strong winds may cause damage to trees or other structures. Poor weather conditions may contribute to transportation delays.

Winter storm warnings are issued when multiple types of severe winter weather are expected to occur together.

As I write this, the main body of the system is over North Dakota as mostly snow, shifting to mostly rain across Minnesota. Though the system is being pushed almost straight North, it’s going East enough that it looks like the most severe weather will pass over the southern border where Manitoba and Ontario meet, with the rain in Minnesota turning to snow quickly, as it heads into Ontario. The system is very wide, from East to West, but it’s now looking like Saskatchewan is going to be spared the worst of it. My nephew and his family are still thinking of making the drive out, but a day later than originally planned.

We’ll see how things actually turn out.

Until then, things continue as usual.

Ghost Baby has been coming out every morning, of late, and not being a ghost at all. My guess is that it’s because she’s pregnant and very hungry.

Just look at those silly kitties, crowding around the one tray on the ground, when there are four other trays inside the kibble house! Altogether, I saw 14 kitties this morning.

While switching out the memory card on the sign cam, I was finally able to find something – it just had to wait for more snow to melt, and the leaf litter to dry before I could see it.

This is one of the closures from the trail cam. I’d been able to find the wire latch, but the black plastic leaver with the hinge were too dark to see on dark wet ground.

Of course, it’s the top latch that broke. The bottom latch is still intact and should be enough to keep the camera closed enough for the weather seal to keep working, but with this latch broken, there is more of a possibility that moisture will get in.

There are a lot of things I like about this camera, but it has one major failing. I cannot handle our cold. When the temperatures drop, the LED screen stops working, and I have to warm it up with my hands to be able to see the settings while changing the micro disc card. Any colder, and it simply stops recording and the batteries freeze. At least it does start working again on its own, when the batteries warm up again. And now I find the plastic becomes more brittle due to the cold, too. At least I hope it’s due to the cold. Otherwise, it’s just cheap plastic.

Ah, well. Live and learn.

I would still recommend this camera is you live somewhere with warmer winters than what we get. For most of Canada, however, I’d say don’t bother. There are other brands with the features this one has that I like. They cost a lot more, but you get what you pay for!

Meanwhile…

We are still working on our Easter preparations. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to the blessing of the baskets on Saturday, but we’re still making it. This year, we’re doing the eggs differently. Instead of dying them in the shell, we’re doing different types and colours of pickled eggs. Right now, we’ve got pink pickled eggs in the fridge, using the brine from our out pickled beets. We’re also going to do a soy sauce brine for brown, and turmeric brine for yellow. I boiled up a whole bunch of eggs already, and finished peeling the last of them this morning. We have just enough mostly-undamaged eggs to do 6 of each type of pickle… and a bunch of ugly ones for egg salad. :-D After that, the only thing we have left to do is bake our fancy Easter bread. :-)

Easter has always been my favourite Holy Day, and our basket tradition the one I’ve always looked forward to the most!

The Re-Farmer

A lovely morning

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For all the insane blizzard warnings we are getting right now, today had quite a lovely morning! The sun was shining, and we were a relatively warm 3C/37F while I did my rounds. In fact, even as I write this, as we slide into the evening hours, the temperature has remained the same.

The outside kitties were out in full force, though I only saw a dozen of them at a time.

I noticed Chadiccous had a black more on one cheek. He doesn’t stay still much as I pet him, but it looks like he’s got quite a scratch across it; the black turned out to be dried blood. He seems okay, though.

It may have been warm(ish) and sunny, but the winds were pretty high. You can just see a bit of it in the photo, but the snowmelt along the driveway actually had surprisingly high waves rippling across.

Yesterday, I’d finally taken a shovel out and freed up one side of the gate, so we can now close it again.

The slide bar that holds the two sides together shows how much one, or both, gate posts have shifted since the hinges were repaired from the damage our vandal did, and the newly painted gates re-hung. The bar used to slide as far as you can see where the paint has been rubbed off, and there was no gap. As it is, the gap is lessened because I had to push the bar down, so I could slide the pin through, below. That screw that’s being used as a pin keeps the bar from sliding back, as the wind shifts the gate back and forth.

For now, we can close the gate again, though I think I’ll make it a habit of opening the gate in the morning, then locking it up again in the evening. With our restraining order in place, our vandal seems to be behaving, and we do get unexpected deliveries during the day.

At the very least, with the blizzard we are supposed to be getting, I think I’ll make sure the gate is open before the snow hits, just in case. I don’t want to end up with the slider bar freezing in place and having to dismantle it to open the gate, again!

I’m still holding out hope that the storm will not be as severe as predicted, but just in case, we are prepared to hunker down for a while.

The Re-Farmer

Matched set!

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This morning was warm and sunny enough that my husband set up the cats’ favourite perch. He opened the inner door in the dining room and set up the little folding step ladder, so they can bird watch out the window of the outer door.

It immediately got claimed by the two biggest boys.

That’s Layendecker and Cheddar. What a matched set those two are! Their sizes and shapes are so alike, if they weren’t wildly different colours, we’d have a hard time telling them apart.

Then there’s tiny little Turmeric underneath, having tried repeatedly to get up on the ladder with them, but unable to squeeze in.

She looks so disappointed.

The Re-Farmer