What a contented expression, as Rolando Moon enjoys her spot in the sun after breakfast!
I was able to do a head count this morning, and all 20 are accounted for! I even got to pet a few of them, as they rushed into the kibble house, including the Distinguished Guest.
The heated water bowl was almost completely empty when I got to it. A bit of frost on the inside showed that it is functioning properly, and shutting itself off when it’s not needed. This time, I filled it completely, rather than dividing the water between all the containers, so they will have liquid water for longer. Later today, I’ll come back out with more warm water and knock the ice out of the other containers, and maybe switch to using a couple for kibble, instead. There is more need to spread out the kibble than the water.
We got a fairly steep drop in the temperatures today. Yesterday, we actually reached 2C/36F, very briefly, which was a few degrees warmer than forecast. This morning, we are at -14C/7F, with a wind chill of -25C/-13F! Tonight, we are supposed to reach a low of -20C/-4F, but the wind chill is supposed to reach -29C/-20F. Which isn’t too bad for this time of year. The weird part is that on Saturday – just three days from now – we are supposed to reach -1C/30F, or possibly even 3C/37F, depending on which weather service I look at!
The outside cats have plenty of food, water and shelter, including the heated cat house, so they will be fine, either way. The younglings will learn from experienced cats like Rolando Moon, and enjoy their sheltered sun spots while they can!
Yesterday, my daughter and I opened up the cats’ house and set up the extension cord I found that is safe to use in there. The heated water bowl had been knocked over again, by the time we got out there, which meant the cats had no liquid water available. They hovered around us the entire time we worked, then when everything was set up and the bowls refilled, they came running! They were so thirsty. I made sure to put water in all the bowls, so more could get at water at the same time.
Then I topped up the kibble trays and even more cats came running! I counted 19. Only Ghost Baby was unseen.
Not this morning!
I counted 20 furry butts this morning! All are accounted for.
Also, the heated water bowl had just an inch or two of water in it when I came out this morning, and no ice. Awesome!
I decided to leave the chimney insert where it was. The cats like to climb up and sit on it, plus the little ones can even go inside it for extra shelter, if necessary.
While doing the rest of my rounds, I noticed deer tracks all over the yards around the house. In some areas, it seems they are checking out the different crab apple, and even the plum trees. There is no fruit on any of them for the deer to find, this winter.
They are even digging into the compost pile. I would not have expected them to try and eat the potato plants in there! Do deer normally try to eat things in the nightshade family???
You can see from the tracks that they’re walking right through the half-finished low raised bed. That one was left with a trench down the middle, where we will add more compostable scraps before the bed gets finished in the spring. That’s where most of the frost damaged aloe vera plants ended up, though there are kitchen scraps in it, too. The deer are not digging in this bed, though. Just walking through it! The garlic beds, at least, are being left alone.
I had an unfortunate surprise, though. While looking at the deer tracks in the trees at the south fence along the spruce grove, I saw them going past the little cedar tree we’d found, and the remains of the mulberry tree we’d planted in the spring (only for it to get killed by that one cold night in May that is also why we had no crab apples, plums, chokecherries or Saskatoons this year). I’d asked my mother about the cedar tree, and she knew nothing about it, so I don’t know who planted it there or when, but it had clearly been there at least few years longer than we have been living here.
This year, for some reason, the deer decided to eat it. The twigs and branches are completely stripped. Not only that, but it looks like they even ate the remains of the mulberry tree! We had left it alone, so it was still in between support stakes, but the deer still managed to get at it.
Even the pile of bush bean plants in the garden that was waiting to be buried in garden plots next spring has been dug into more. There doesn’t seem to be much left at all.
We’ve had such a long, mild fall and, even with the one blizzard we’ve had, things have still been very mild and there’s not a tremendous amount of snow, by any means. This early in the winter, there is still lots of food available for the deer that is easy for them to get at. We haven’t see the deer in our yard, just their tracks, but we do see them along the roads or the occasional trial cam file, and they are still quite plump and hearty looking.
So why are they acting like they are starving? And going for things like the cedar, which they completely ignored for years?
I suppose it’s possible the cedar will still survive and regrow in the spring, but it seems so strange that they would have gone for it now.
One thing is for sure. When we finally do start planting our fruit and nut trees and berry bushes, we’re going to have to make sure they are well protected from the deer!
Also, it gives us even more incentive to plant forage trees, beyond the outer yard, so the deer will have less reason to come after trees closer to the house.
My husband was able to bring food and water to the cats this morning. He found the heated water bowl had been knocked over again, even with the improved set up. Which means, of course, it is unplugged again. It’s just too close to the entrance of the cats’ house.
When I headed out later and went to put bird seed out, I found this handsome bird watching me!
Tuxedo Mask has such owl eyes, too! :-D
It’s rare, but he does sometimes let us touch him. More often, if I hold my hand out for him to sniff, he tentatively bats at it, instead. :-D This morning, however, I had a lovely surprise. Chadicous (I think) kept flopping onto the snow in front of my feet while I was trying to move around, pausing to pet Agnoos and Nutmeg. I’d reach out to Chadicous and he’d move away a few inches, before flopping on the ground again.
Then I got him!
Before he had a chance to move, I was able to start skritching his ears. Not only did he stay and let me keep skritching for a while, but he was actually purring!!!
Yes, progress!
As I continued my rounds, I went into the garage and did some digging. I found the extension cords we use to plug in our van, and the old one that used to be inside my mother’s car, to plug in the block heater, battery warmer and trickle charger, set up under the hood. Her old one got replaced because it was damaged, but I half remembered having an extra.
I was right. Not only did we have an extra cord that was only 8 ft long (still longer than I need, but better than the next size up we have, which is 30 feet!), but I could see no damage to it at all. I brought it to the house and asked my husband to check it for me while I finished my rounds, and he tested it out, too. It’s one of those that has a light in the female end to show if there is power on or not. It is in perfect working order, and has no damage.
Which means we have a suitable, safe extension cord we can set up inside the cats’ house, long enough that I can run it along the frame, away from the straw bedding and any gnawing teeth, up to the entry. We will then be able to reach the plug through the opening, instead of having to lift the roof every time. When my daughter and I opened the cat house to plug in the water bowl yesterday, I discovered it moving away from the wall near the hinge on one side. That roof is very heavy, and the shelter is pretty old. One of the pieces of wood in the frame had split, right near the corner. After we were done, I added a couple of screws from the outside to stabilize it. When we open it again today, I’ll give it another look and see if I should add more.
Once that’s done, we will no longer have to keep the heated water bowl so close to the entry, and can have it directly the ground.
There’s always a little something, when I do my morning rounds! :-D
My husband had been able to take care of the cats earlier, so when I got out, I just have to put out feed for the birds (and deer). By the time I came out, however, I found the new heated water bowl had been knocked over. There had to have been some sort of altercation at the entry of the cats’ house, because even the brick supports around it had gone flying, and the power cord to the bowl had been pulled out.
Not only was the new bowl empty, but the water in the other bowls was frozen solid!
Something better had to be found.
I quickly went to feed the birds, thinking about it, and noticed the chimney liners along the side of the house. Since cleaning up the pile behind the house, we’ve been using these to hold the insulation that gets put around the house every winter.
They were just the right size and shape. Was there one we could spare?
Not on that side of the house, so I came back around and looked at the ones along the back of the house. We have other things set up against the house to help keep the insulation from being blown away, so I was able to find one that looked like we could spare.
It’s the perfect size and shape!
The bowl is so big, I added bricks as spacers between it and the shelter. The cats immediately were all over it, until I refilled the other water bowls, too. They were very thirsty!
We will have to plug the bowl back in later, once there are two people available. With the snow accumulation, the counterweight doesn’t quite reach the ground, so one person has to hold up the roof while the other does what needs to be done, inside. When we do our monthly shop, we’ll pick up a short, appropriate extension cord that can be safely used, so we can at least not have to worry about the cord being unplugged. Not too short, though. I want to run it along the frame of the shelter, just under the roof, so there will be no issue with the cats knocking it about, and no critters chewing on it.
Thanks to my daughter digging out more paths, I was able to get at the back of the garage and the outhouse. To clear access to the outhouse, my daughter had to break up that fallen piece of tree. It was warm enough to no longer be quite frozen to the ground, but that’s as far as it’s going to be moved until, most likely, spring.
When switching out the memory card in the trail cam by the new sign, I noticed these tracks. Something had walked towards the corner, stopped, then turned around. At first, I thought they were foot prints, they were so big. That didn’t seem likely, given the piles of snow from the plow. Not even our vandal is that dedicated to causing problems! The question was, did whatever made it go far enough to trigger the motion sensor on the trail cam?
The answer is, yes!
Would you look at that majestic beauty!!
While doing my rounds and seeing deer tracks, I had been noticing some hoof prints much larger than the others. I’d say, we’ve captured the beast that made them! And what a handsome fella he is!
I’m pretty sure we’ve been seeing this same buck visiting our place since we moved here. If it is, this would be the fifth winter of visits from him. :-)
First of all, I’m happy to say the new heated water bowl is working out just fine!
The power cord is slightly shorter than the old one. It specifically stated on one of the labels to not use extension cords with it, and there are no other outdoor power outlets we can use here, so we had to get creative. The bowl is not on a makeshift platform to support it. That made it too high for the cats to reach the water from outside the cats’ house, but a couple of buckets and bricks now serve as surfaces that cats can use to sit on – while also providing stability to keep the bowl from getting knocked over as the cats go in and out of their house.
The cats where checking it out and using it almost immediately! :-)
Including this roly poly Potato, who followed me when I started my rounds. :-D
There were quite a lot of deer tracks around, but this was new this morning.
The dug up the pile of dried up bush beans that had been cleared out and set aside, to eat. These were waiting to be buried in the beds in the spring, but there might not be any left by then!
Today was pretty warm, so I took advantage of it to do a small burn. While tending the burn barrel, looking at the nearby deer tracks in the snow, I found myself trying to figure out another set of tracks.
It looks like a pair of animals leaped their way through the snow! Fairly recently, too. They are very fresh, and were made after the deer had gone by. I have no idea what would have done this. The holes left in the snow are not that big, but the space between them is pretty huge! Looking at the holes nearest where I was, I couldn’t see any prints inside them, as the snow had collapsed inward as the creatures leapt about.
Any hunters or trackers out there who might know what made these?
After the burn was done, I also took advantage of the relative warmth and broke out the ice chipper.
Then I finally got to shovel the main paths wide enough that my husband can get through with his walker.
Then, because I’m a suck, I shoveled the path along the garden bed that cats had been using. :-D It’s not wide enough for a walk, but if my husband ever needed to, he can at least cane it through here.
After I came inside, the girls went out and cleared paths to the compost pile, outhouse and the back door of the garage.
Eventually, we’ll clear enough of the yard that we can drive in to unload the van, but that will be a job for our little electric snow blower. :-)
All that done, I then worked on the cheese I’ve been making, which was really interesting. That will be in my next post! :-)
Since the blizzard hit, I’ve been trying to get a head count on the outside cats, every chance I get. That we were consistently seeing “only” 17 or 18 at once had me concerned about the missing ones, but with how much they mill about, I couldn’t even tell which ones were missing!
Well, this morning, I am much relieved.
After topping up their kibble trays, I counted 17 again. Then another one showed up after they got their warm water. Finally, I saw Ghost Baby ghosting her way across the yard and disappearing behind the kibble house, for 19. Awesome! Just short one fur baby.
Then, as I started down the driveway, Rosencrantz emerged from under the garage door. Twenty!! Yes! For the first time since the blizzard, all 20 outside cats, including the Distinguished Guest, are all accounted for!
I am happy.
When checking the gate, I could see that the road was plowed, so I headed out to get the mail. There, I found an awesome surprise!
A dear, awesome, fabulous friend sent us a replacement heated water bowl – and that thing is HUGE!!!
One and a half gallon capacity! Thermostatically controlled, too, so it won’t stay on constantly.
Thank you, my awesome friend! You’re the best!
Later today, I’ll snag a daughter to wrestle the cats’ house roof open so we can plug it in and set it up.
The cats are going to really love having enough warm water to last all of them, all day!!
I just had to giggle at the fresh cat path, long the ridges left behind when the driveway was cleared. So many paw prints. Probably made during the rush to the kibble house, when my husband came out with food, this morning! We had blowing snow all night, so these are definitely recent tracks.
The cats aren’t the only critters who appreciate the driveway being cleared, and the paths we’ve made! Along the driveway, I could see deer tracks showing where they jumped fences, then used the driveway before jumping the gate.
The cats are handling the snow very well. They all have their dense winter fur. That’s a relief. Fenrir became an inside cat because she doesn’t have the undercoat, and would not have survived her first winter, if we hadn’t brought her in. I don’t know where she came from, but our local stock are well adapted to the cold!
They are definitely eating more, now. Though I husband had fed them not long before I headed out, I still ended up topping up some of the kibble trays. Which is good. They need those calories!
Agnoos was more interested in trying to trip me up! :-D
I’m not completely sure which of the ‘icouses this one is. Thadicous, most likely.
He was having a blast, rolling around in the snow!
We ended up having a storm blow through last night. I was keeping an eye on the garage cam live feed, and it was frequently blinded by snow. Over the hours, I saw the snow ridges on the sides of the driveway slowly disappear, so I had some trepidation as I came out this morning. Thankfully, it was just due to blowing snow that drifted against them, making everything look level in the infrared light. We won’t even need to shovel! I also kept an ear out on road conditions, and lots of people were reporting them as being very dangerous, due to ice and blowing snow. The temperature reached a low of only -4C/25F, and we’re still at that temperature as I write this. My weather apps had the wind chill last night at -15C/5F, but I have no doubt it felt a lot colder at times.
This morning, I dug out a waterproof cord protector and plugged in the cats’ house, even though temperatures are still relatively mild. It was more about still having access through the snow. The timer the heat bulb is plugged into is set to operate from dawn to dusk. As long as there is enough light coming in through the window, it won’t turn on. Which means we won’t have visual confirmation that it’s working until it’s dark, and we can see the red on indicator light through the window. The girls did check it when they cleaned the cats’ house out, so it should be fine.
While doing my rounds, I could hear the sound of heavy equipment, so the roads are being worked on. Mostly, they need to be sanded, but that won’t get done until any drifting gets cleared, first. The main road that goes past us gets cleared quickly, but side roads like the one past our driveway might not get done until tomorrow, depending on how quickly they can do the main roads. Thankfully, things are supposed to stay calm and relatively mild for the next couple of weeks. I don’t mind the snow, though. Any snow we get will go a long way to helping restore the level of our water table, after this past summer’s drought. The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicted a mild wet winter for our region, and I do hope they are right! We really need the break from the bitter cold of the past two winters, in particular. It may make getting around harder, but snow is a good thing.
My husband and been able to feed the outside cats this morning, so it wasn’t until I went out to top up their kibble trays that I was able to see a lot of them.
Since the newcomer – whom the girls call our Distinguished Guest – showed up, we have been up to 20 yard cats.
I think I see seventeen, here.
Or is it eighteen?
We have four orange cats right now. Rolando Moon is in the foreground. Toesencrantz is in the middle of the kibble house. Creamsicle Baby is against the back. I took several photos and, even zooming in on the full sized files, I can’t quite make out if there’s a Nutmeg mashed between Creamsicle and the back wall!
Well, if he’s there, he would be number 18. I’d dashed out without bothering to put on a coat, so I wasn’t about to hang around too long to get a head count!
We’re supposed to get pretty warm today, with a predicted high of 2C/36F, and a combination of rain and snow. It was already just under freezing overnight, which should have meant a pleasant morning to do my rounds. I wasn’t expecting those winds, though! It was warm enough that snow on the roof is melting, and immediately freezing again. The downspouts are full of ice, so it’s dripping all along the eaves-troughs. I broke icicles, just opening the sun room door! :-D
The kitties were very happy for food and warm water!
I only counted 17 again, but they move around so much, I can’t tell which three were missing, which means even if they came around by the time I finished my rounds, I wouldn’t be able to tell.
There are deer tracks crossing all over the inner yard, and here you can see where they milled around the crab apple trees. Sadly, there are no crab apples for them this year. At least they’re getting a bit of food from the black oil seed we put out for the birds. This is just our first snowfall of the winter, though, so they are not at all in dire straights.
They did appreciate the sunflowers I left behind for them! There isn’t a single leaf or underdeveloped seed head left.
I just love this corridor along the spruce grove, created when we cleared away the lowest branches (many of which were dead). It makes for such a nice, sheltered walkway. As you can see by the tracks, the deer seem to prefer it, too!
My older brother planted these trees, sometime in early 70’s, I think. I would have been just a wee one, and don’t remember them ever not being there, but I do remember being able to climb some of them with my late brother, when we were little. :-) There was one tree that had branches lined up so that I could lounge on them like in a reclining chair. My late brother, on the other hand, could climb trees like a monkey, could climb any tree he wanted and go so much higher than I could, with or without branches handy! Of course, in my memory, they were absolutely huge. They would have been a fair bit smaller than they are now, but in my memory, they seemed bigger! :-D
Once I was done my rounds, I quickly checked the trial cam files, then headed out. I wanted to hit the post office, then to into town to refill our big water jugs and get a flat of eggs. By the time I headed out, however, the winds had picked up even more, and it was raining. Though the gravel roads had been plowed, they were still in rough shape, and driving on them was like driving on a wash board! The paved roads didn’t seem much better, so decided to pick up what I could when I picked up the mail. It’s in a tiny little general store, and they don’t have a lot of selection, but manage to have a good variety of groceries, at least. They do carry the big jugs of water, so I asked about that. Normally, one would pay a $10 deposit for the jug, then $6 for the water. After that, it’s just an exchange of empty jugs for full, for just the cost of the water. I checked, and they looked the same as our own jugs, and the store owner ended up calling the company about it. They were okay with taking another empty, as long as it was clean and the same size/type of jug. So I traded one of our empties that didn’t have a label on it and just had to pay for the water, and not a deposit. It’s more expensive than if I’d gone into town to refill them myself, like I usually do. Likewise with the cartons of eggs I got (we really need to get chickens!), but that’s a small trade off to avoid making the drive on rough, icy roads in the rain and gusting winds.
The closer I can stay to home, the more content I am! :-D
I spotted the most adorable furry spice girl in a plant pot this morning.
When I walked past the living room and saw Saffron in there, watching the birds out the window, I just had to sneak off and get my phone for some pictures!
I’d dug up this old plant stand – I remember my mother had a massive Christmas cactus in it, when I was a child, which means it’s probably older than me – for one of our re-potted aloe vera, hoping the cats would be deterred from digging in the dirt. I was wrong. The plants are now safely in the aquarium greenhouse, but I hadn’t put the plant stand back in storage yet.
The Re-Farmer 