While the inside cats – at least one of them, anyhow – were busily trying to destroy our bunching onion seedlings, the outside cats were far more civil and adorable!
When I headed out to do their food and water, I opened up the sun room door, so Potato Beetle could come out. He was all curled up in the box nest we made for him.
The only reason he came out at all was because I refilled the outside bowls with warm water, before doing the one in the sun room. It had frozen over, but didn’t freeze solid, like the ones outside.
Once he knew there was warm water in the sun room, he was back inside!
The litter box we have for him was unused, though from the smell, he found somewhere to go! I think he (unsuccessfully) tried to use a plant pot with soil in it, as I found it knocked over. The good thing about the sun room is, we can easily clear it out and clean the concrete floor in the spring. He does know how to use a litter box; we used the sun room as a winter shelter for the cats and they all preferred to use the litter boxes we had in there, rather than go out in the snow!
By the time I finished with the deer and bird feed, Potato was back in his box nest, all curled up and ready for a nap! So I closed up the replacement door, leaving the inner door open, to allow a bit more light and warmth in.
While doing the rest of my rounds, I had plenty of company, as Butterscotch, her three boys, Nosy and Rolando Moon, all followed me around!
We had snow last night. A light, fluffy, crystalline snow. I wish I could capture on camera, just how much everything was glittering and sparkling this morning!
This is not frost. This is snow! Every surface that could hold the flakes was glittering in the sunlight. It was an amazing sight!
Almost as amazing as this… ;-)
We had an adorable gatekeeper of cuteness! :-D
Creamsicle Jr. is a shy one, so I had to zoom in to take photos while trying to get closer.
He didn’t like that too much. :-D
I really hope we are able to better socialize him – and the rest of the semi-feral kitties that won’t let us near them! – over the summer. :-)
We never took him to the vet, because we couldn’t find him!
I did see him this morning, and should have locked him up in the sun room, but I didn’t want him have him locked up like that for almost 6 hours. A couple of hours before we were planning to leave, we went looking for him. He was nowhere to be found!
So I called the vet and explained the situation. Whenever we manage to snag him, we are to give them a call and they’ll fit him in. Unless, it turns out not to be needed. I took some photos this morning, and offered to email one in, and they were good with that.
I still couldn’t see his wound this morning, but I can often get photos at angles that let me see more than I could manage otherwise, so I took a bunch of shots while he was eating.
You can tell from this first one, why the wound was so hard to see. If it had not been so matted and had dry blood in the fur, yesterday, I would not have noticed it. Today, it looked much cleaner.
This is the best look I’ve had of the wound itself, ever. It’s not actively bleeding, and does not appear to be infected. In showing the photos to my older daughter, she told me she had seen what she thought were puncture marks on either side of his leg, where the fur goes white, but I could see no sign of anything like that. Likely, they are small enough for the fur to hide completely.
He was chipper and active enough to follow me as I did my rounds, when he helped me demonstrate perspective on some tracks in the snow.
My brother’s dog has huge paws! :-D With yesterday’s warmth, followed by the overnight freeze, there were a lot of his tracks sunk deep into the snow during the warmth of the day, then frozen overnight. :-)
There were lots of other tracks. Mostly from deer. Probably including these ones!
I spotted them outside our north facing window. Only one of them went to the feeding station by the living room window, though from the lack of feed on the ground, I think the herd was leaving rather than arriving.
When my daughter and I went outside to try and find Potato Beetle, and he wasn’t in the usual places, we decided to do some noisy chores. If he were at my younger brother’s place, or the empty farm yard across the other road, he would likely hear us and come over.
He didn’t. Which tells me he went further afield. I suppose that’s good news, since it would mean he was feeling strong and healthy. My daughter, of course, was fretting that he might be hurt in a ditch somewhere.
We never saw Potato, but I did get this job done.
When the girls shoveled snow off the roof, before things started melting, the snow covered my path to the feeding station, and no one had a chance to clear it until today. After the melt and freeze we had, I ended up having to use a metal garden shovel, instead of our plastic snow shovels, because it was the only thing strong enough to break through the hard packed top layer. My daughter, meanwhile, used the ice chipper to clear the sidewalk. As things warm up, the paths will melt away and clear faster.
With all the chopping and scraping, we were making more than enough noise to attract curious kitties. Just not the one we were after!
I was thinking that, tomorrow morning, I could put him in the sun room with some food and water – I’m just not sure what I can use as a litter box – and we can keep him tucked away. I won’t be able to take him in to the vet tomorrow, because tomorrow I will be doing a big shopping trip. Not quite our monthly shop, since I will be using my mother’s car, but enough to stock up for at least a couple of weeks.
And why will I be using my mother’s car?
Well, I ran the van today, and it’s still making that whining noise that I thought was the serpentine belt, but now think is the power steering pump, next to the belt. I checked the fluid level, and it’s full.
So when I had the chance, I called up the garage and left a message about it, asking him to call me back.
Which he probably tried to do, but would have gotten a busy signal.
You see, I did something else today. I purchased and downloaded this year’s TurboTax and started the tax returns for myself and my husband. Because of our internet connectivity problems, I made sure to get the desktop version, not the online set up, like we used last year. Our returns are pretty basic, so I finished them this morning. Tax returns are easy when your incomes are “nothing” and “better than nothing”. I was able to file mine electronically, but when I tried to file my husband’s, I got a message saying I’d used up all the available returns and it wanted me to buy more. Considering the software I bought allows for up to 20 returns in total – and the checker even showed I still had 19 left – it should have worked. After several failed attempts, it was time to contact TurboTax!
After not being able to find contact information of any kind on the website (they route people to the community, instead), I finally went to their Facebook page and sent a message briefly explaining what was happening. While my daughter and I were outside making noise to try and attract Potato, I got a response with a phone number to call.
I made that call after calling the garage.
I ended up on the phone for about 2 hours.
Among the problems we had was the software simply not opening. It kept “not responding”. We were using a sharer, so the tech person I was talking to could see my desktop, and my computer decided that today was the day to get all sluggish on me. I ended up reinstalling the software and trying to open it again, and it still wouldn’t. After several more failed attempts, we tried restarting my computer.
Which stalled during the restart. I ended up having to do a hard shut down and trying again.
Once I finally got the computer itself started, I tried opening the software before linking up with the tech, only to have it want to restart the computer again, because changes were made.
*sigh*
Eventually, we did get it going. I was able to open the software, our tax returns were still there, with my husband’s ready to be sent, and the tech person could see my desktop. I tried to file my husband’s return, and it sat there, spinning for a while. On that one, I did assure her that it was our unstable internet that was the problem, this time!
The screen telling me I was out of returns popped up and she finally got to see what was happening. She got me to check a few things for her, she asked all sorts of questions, before finally settling in on her side to find a solution.
I was not at all surprised when she told me it was passed on to someone in Tier 2, and she was waiting for a response.
There was a lot of waiting. She was very apologetic. I told her I didn’t mind the wait. I just needed it fixed. Particularly since we have to more people who need to file! So I didn’t have a problem with the wait.
I ended up being put on actual hold a couple of times before we got to the end, and it was pretty much what I had suspected would happen.
The problem is going to the next level.
It’s a bug, and there’s nothing that can be done about it at our end. Someone will get back to me, possibly within 24 hours, as they fix the bug. I should be able to file my husband’s return tomorrow.
Well, I won’t be holding my breath on that, but we’ll see.
By the time I got off the phone I had no doubt that, if the garage had tried to call me back, he would have given up rather quickly.
So, tomorrow morning, I will try calling him again, before I head out. Hopefully, he won’t be too booked and I’ll be able to bring the van in, soon. Depending on how early I can get the shopping done, who knows. Maybe we can still get Potato Beetle in to the vet! Unless they look at the photo and say not to bother. It’s possible, I suppose.
As if all that wasn’t enough, I got a quick phone call from my older brother. He had just talked to my mother but was about to start a meeting, so he wanted to let me know that our vandal had called her today. Three times! She let it go to message, thankfully. So while he went off to his meeting (which will be 3 hours long!), I called my mother to see if she was okay. She did sound upset. Our vandal had said “the usual”, but I had to clarify that. There are several “usual” things he says. He had been ranting at her about “giving” the farm to me and my brother (why he still thinks I have any ownership of the farm, I have no idea), apparently brought God into it (he knows she’s deeply religious, so one of his things is to tell her she won’t go to heaven to be with my late father and brother, because she’s not doing what he thinks she should be doing). There was a new one in there – at least new to me, though it’s possible he’s used this before and my mother never mentioned it. Basically, he was telling her to talk to him – as in pick up the phone, rather than letting it go to machine. Of course, anytime she does try to talk to him, it’s very much a one way conversation, as he doesn’t let her get a word in edgewise. Then she ends up hanging up to him. We’ve been working on getting her to let calls go to the machine, unless she can see who is calling. If that means my siblings and I ended up talking to a machine and calling her back later, we’re good with that. Better this slight inconvenience than her being verbally abused.
I have no idea what triggered him to call her today. Especially three times! It does remind me that I should call the court office this week, and see if a court date for the restraining order I applied for will finally happen. It’s already been pushed back three times because of the shut downs. :-(
So… It’s been quite the day, today!!
If I were a drinking person, I’d be pouring myself a stiff drink right now! But I’m not. So I will brew myself a pot of tea, instead. :-D
Oh, my goodness! It is so incredibly warm out there right now!
The Weather Network app on my desktop has not been working well with our intermittent internet connection, and often will not update at all, but the weather app that came with my computer seems to get through better. (Even while writing a post, I’ll get the red bar across the top, telling me the autosave didn’t work because I have no internet, several times before I’m done!) Between those two on my desktop, plus the one on my phone, we have three different forecasts at the same time. :-D They would be linked to different weather stations. None of them tell me which weather station they are linked to. Ah, well. They tend to be close it enough, it doesn’t matter too much.
We have all sorts of melt happening right now! This is the diverter from our rain barrel; it’s mostly full and frozen right now, so I’m not letting the melt go into it for now. I did empty it in the fall, so all the water in it – minus what I was able to bail out several times over this winter – is from when things got warm enough to melt. A demonstration of how, in spite of the polar vortex we’ve been under for the past few weeks, this has been a very mild winter!
While doing my rounds I, of course, checked on the yard cats. Nosy’s eyes are still leaky, but they are more open. He’s spending much of his time in the cat house, with the white cat with calico markings. I was looking through old files and confirmed that she is Rosentrantz’s baby. I have some photos and video from last spring of her and her orange sibling, being groomed by Rosencrantz, outside the pump shack. We never saw her orange sibling again, and have no idea what happened to it. I am just sort of assuming this cat is also a female, but we really have no idea. She runs off too quickly.
It was Potato Beetle I most wanted to check out. He had looked really messed up, just a few days ago, and had blood on his fur at his back legs, but we weren’t able to see where he was hurt. Yesterday, I saw him and, while he was moving around better than before, he was still messed up. Plus, there seemed to be some (frozen) bloody mucus on his fur on a back leg. I tried to see where it came from and thought there might have been some swelling inside a back leg, but he wouldn’t let me get a better look.
This morning, when he came out for food and water, I was happy to see he seemed to be moving normally again. He was eating with good appetite, and followed me around as I continued my rounds. He even let me pick him up and carry him, at the same time as Butterscotch. When I got back to the house, I was able to put Butterscotch down and try and get a look at Potato Beetle’s back legs and belly. I saw no sign of injury or swelling. There was no longer any dried blood, either. So I put him down and watched as he went into the kibble house.
When is when I saw the matted fur on his hip. I tried to get a closer look, and found it was a wound. My touching the area obviously was uncomfortable and he moved away, but I was able to see the fur was matted with blood and getting into the wound. I am guessing this is from a bite. It’s not a clean wound, like the gash we found on Butterscotch, but a messy hole. From what I can see, he just needs to be cleaned up and will likely need a stitch. Getting him on an antibiotic would be good, too. He would probably be fine if we did nothing at all, but… why take the chance?
So… time to dip into the emergency funds and take him to the vet. Thank God we actually have emergency funds! Before moving out here, we would never have been able to set money aside for any sort of contingency fund or savings. It’s amazing what a different not paying cash for rent makes, even if we have much higher expenses in other areas. :-)
I am going to my mother’s to help her with shopping today, so we will be bringing him in tomorrow afternoon. I’ve already called the vet to arrange it. At least Potato is one of the more socialized cats and will not be a problem to catch. I should still probably close him up in the sun room when I do my morning rounds tomorrow, just to make sure he’s in the area when it’s time to get him into the carrier.
Meanwhile, all the cats seem to be really enjoying these warmer temperatures! Including Potato Beetle with his injury. The younger cats are very rambunctious, playing in the snow and wrestling. They are such fun to watch!
My goodness, it’s feeling like spring out there! As I write these, we are at -8C/18F and expected to still warm up a bit! Not even the wind chill of -15C/5F can put a damper on it. :-D It’s so warm that, while doing my morning rounds (at about -15C, before wind chill), I was actually starting to overheat in my parka!
I’m also excited to say that we are seeing new sprouts in our aquarium greenhouses. Not only among the shallots we planted 5 days ago, but even the bunching onions that were planted four days ago! Talk about excellent germination speed!
While doing my rounds this morning and changing the cats’ water, I found this adorable sight.
Nostrildamus, getting some cuddles!
The other cat he’s with is one that is incredibly shy and we rarely see. We think it is either his sibling, or Rosencrantz’s kitten. They were so skittish, we never quite figured it out.
Nosy did come out as I was doing the bird and deer feed. Both his eyes are still gummed up. He can open them enough to see a bit, at least, but not well. My brother’s dog had come to visit, and he couldn’t see well enough to know the dog was around until he was being sniffed! When he climbed up a rail in front of the sun room, I took the opportunity to give his eyes as good of a wipe as I could, with a dry tissue. By Monday, we’ll be above freezing temperatures, so that would be the time to give his eyes a wash with a damp cloth. Meanwhile, in his semi-blindness, he is at least discovering that my brother’s dog isn’t actually trying to hurt him, but just sniff him. :-)
This afternoon, I made a trip into town to pick up a package that Purolater had left at a drop off station there, since they don’t deliver to our area at all. It’s been a few weeks, trying to get this thing! When we got a call saying it would be dropped off in town, I was told it would be there for only 5 business days, and then would be returned to sender. That’s when the deep freeze hit, and we weren’t going anywhere, so I called the store that serves as a drop off point about it. That’s when I found out they hang on to packages for 28 days before sending them back! So I don’t know what Purolator was talking about.
We had no idea what the package was, and now I’m glad we went through all the trouble! It turned out to be the hard copy of a book we ordered back in December. I’m excited to read it, because it was written by a friend of ours. You can check it out here (not an affiliate link).
Since I was in town, anyhow, I picked up a few things, and even remembered to pick up more deer feed, so I pulled the car into the yard to unload.
Which is when I found another adorable sight.
The brothers are enjoying the sun together, as well as the warmer surface of the insulation lining the shelves! I had to zoom in with my phone to take the picture, so the quality sucks, but they’re still cute!
Also, the cats love to bite that insulation. Those edges used to be smoothly cut. You can even see teeth marks! All over the ground in front of the shelf are little bits of insulation that they bite off and spit out. LOL
The ice chunks in the foreground are from my using the sawhorses to bash the water bowls against, to clear empty them.
My brother’s dog was visiting again when I got back, and I was pleased to see the cats were all running around and playing, instead of hiding from him. It looks like they are starting to get used to him! My brother’s dog used to come here all the time to visit my late father. This place is was like a second home to him, so I’m glad the critters are starting to get along.
I am really looking forward to the next few days! I’ve seen the forecast for Monday as high as 5C/41F !! though right now, it’s back to “only” 4C/39F
It’s amazing how uplifting the warmer temperatures are. :-)
With how bitterly cold it has been for the past while, I have been doing my morning rounds much later in the morning. It may only have been a couple of degrees warmer, but I was taking anything I could get! Usually, by the time I came out, the outside cats were hovering around the door, looking for me to come out with warm water.
This morning, I headed out at a more usual time, even though it was -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F
Absolutely none of the cats came out to greet me! LOL
The only cat I saw was Nosy and, other than lifting his head to look at me, he did not move! Considering that he is curled up right under where the terrarium bulb is, I’m guessing it’s still working.
My brother’s dog was visiting again. He’s loving this cold so much! :-D I didn’t have any cats joining me for my rounds, but I did have him to keep me company! You can even see him in the photo below.
We have deer paths all through the garden area and the East yard, but none are as well worn as these, here. We used to have a trail cam facing where they would cross the road from my brother’s place and jump our fence. One of these days, I’d like to set one up again. I miss seeing how many deer used to cross here!
What I found this morning, however, is that the top barbed wire is loose from one post, and it was twisted around the middle wire. It had been torn loose when a deer didn’t quite clear the fence! I’m going to have to find some U nails and head out with a hammer to fix it.
Long term, we’re going to have to find a way to stop the deer from entering our yard around here at all. As much as I like them, I don’t want them eating the garden! Privacy is also a goal, and not just from our vandal creeping about. Even with the lilac hedge and other trees along the fence like, people driving by like to slow down and peer into the property. Particularly if there are deer at the house. The fence posts around the garden area all need to be replaced, and I want to get away from barbed wire completely, so building a privacy fence around the garden area that the deer can’t jump over is right in line with our goals. When we can do that is another question entirely! :-D
Speaking of gardens…
This morning, I noticed that the label for the bunching onions in the small tank had been knocked over. Though I had blocked the opening in the lid, a cat had still managed to reach in and bat at things. When I lifted the lid to fix it, though, I could feel it was noticeably colder than the room!
Clearly, lining the inside of the tank with insulation was not enough. The above picture is from when the trays were first put into the tank. Not only did a cat knock over the label, but I found one of the peaks of cardboard in a corner had been torn off!
The light on this tank is LED. It provides no warmth. The light on the big tank is fluorescent (I had thought it was LED, too, but was remembering incorrectly), so it does help keep the seedlings warm. The little tank was way too cold for the seeds!
After thinking about how we could warm up the inside of the tank, I remembered something. Years ago, I’d bought a small, recessed bulb, light fixture to provide spot lighting while I was working on crafts, etc. I stopped using it because it had a tendency to get very hot, even with an LED bulb. The bulb would be cool, but the fixture would get hot. I kept it and we even brought it along when we moved here. So this morning, I dug it out, then went through a bag of bulbs we have. We replaced almost all of the light bulbs here with LED bulbs, plus we still had some that the movers accidentally included when packing our stuff. Lo and behold, I found a full spectrum incandescent light bulb in the mix.
Perfect!
So I set the light fixture up on the edge of the tank, with the lid propped on it to hold it in place. I also dug around our aquarium supplies and found the little tank thermometer. The suction cup doesn’t work anymore, but I could still set it up inside the tank so that we could monitor the temperature.
It worked. In only a few minutes, I could feel a significant difference! (The thermometer will need more time to read accurately, since it was in the old kitchen, where it’s below freezing temperatures.)
We can only have this light going while someone is there to supervise, since it could literally melt the plastic of the lid. Since the tank is lined with insulation, once it warms up inside, it will stay warm for quite a while, so a few minutes here and there will be adequate.
On the down side, the cats still try to jump on the lid, even when it’s propped up over the light fixture.
I did not expect the small tank to be less cat proof than the big one!
Okay, so it looks like our internet is working, at least somewhat, so this is a sort of test post!
Today was a beautifully warm day! We reached -13C/9F, which was awesome! They are now forecasting Monday will be 4C!! (40F) It’s going to be amazing! The girls will be going out onto the roof to get as much snow off the second level roof as they can. There isn’t a lot, but once it starts melting, we don’t have to have water leaking into the house at the window again.
As I was doing my rounds, the spice boys and Creamsicle Jr. were happily rough housing in the snow. Creamsicle Jr’s eye looks all clean and healthy now, which is good to see. There was quite a crowd of cats this morning, and I even saw Rosencrantz. I haven’t seen her in weeks! Nosy was on his warm spot on the tire in front of the garage side doors, meowing plaintively. He’s looking better, overall, but now both his eyes are leaking. Poor thing.
While checking the trail cam files later, I was most impressed. The new camera, which includes a temperature reading along with the time stamp, had an internal temperature of -3C (27F) at a time of day when I knew it was about -16C (3F) outside. Moving it out of the shade has made a huge difference. It got below -25C (-13F) during the night, but it still kept shooting stills, even when the batteries got too cold to be able to record video. The older camera, meanwhile, had no problem with the cold.
I used my mother’s car to go into town and pick up a few things, then we later made a much needed dump run. Somewhere in between there, something happened to Potato Beetle! He had been fine this morning, when he joined me for my rounds and I carried him around. He came around while we were unloading the car, and was looking a mess. Literally. He had dirt all over, and his fur was matted. He was also walking as though limping with his back legs. We found dried blood in the fur on the inside of his ankle, but could see no wound. We’ve been putting our garbage bags in the old kitchen, where they can freeze, but no animals can tear apart the bags. I went through the sun room to load bags into the car, and he followed me in. By the time I was done, he’d settled onto a old pillow under the swing bench – his favourite spot in there – so I left the doors partly open and let him be. Unfortunately, this evening, my younger daughter heard a commotion, and found Nicky the Nose in the sun room, going after Potato Beetle. :-( I think we can guess who messed Potato Beetle up!
We’ve got to do something about Nicky the Nose! We’ve had quite a few other toms, from who knows where, come by but none have been as aggressive towards our yard cats as Nicky.
Well, time to see if we have a stable enough internet connect for me to post this! :-D
After adding more water and letting it soak overnight, we were left with a sort of peat slurry! :-D No fear of the seeds not getting enough moisture, this time!
To contain any potential mess, I set up inside the under-bed storage container that will eventually be used to hold the beer cups that I will be using as larger pots, when it’s time to start the squash seeds. It won’t be needed for some weeks, yet, and it was the perfect size and depth for this job.
It’s a bit hard to see in the photo, but you can tell why having something under the trays to support them was so essential. The first tray I filled is the slightly darker one on the left. It’s darker, because the cardboard is completely wet! Which means it’s also very floppy. There is no way these trays could be handled, without something solid under them.
When I planted the bulb onions, I was left with about half a package of unused seeds.
Not the shallots! I had just enough seed to put two in every cell, minus 1 seed. :-D
Though the peat was well saturated, I still sprayed the tops, more to settle the surface than for actual watering. When it came time to move the trays, I tipped them side to side a bit, to allow excess water that had soaked through the cardboard to spill off.
To get the trays into the tank, I had to take the light fixture off completely. All the trays fit perfectly, from end to end. If I wanted to, I’d be able to fit pots or egg cartons (dozen size, not 18’s) in the space at the front. That isn’t needed now, but when it’s time to start other seeds, we might find ourselves crowding the space as much as possible.
We freed up an 18 count egg carton this morning, so I checked out the fit in the smaller tank. One carton fits, of course, but only in one direction, and it’s long enough that we would not be able to fit in a second one. So I went back to my stack of flats and picked out two. The trays are 5 x 6 cells, and I cut them down to 5 x 5. That will allow two trays to fit in the smaller tank.
I will be adding a bit more peat to the container to absorb some of the excess water and leave it overnight. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to use the cut down trays and start the bunching onions in the small tank. :-)
Between these and the onion sets we’ll be getting in the spring, we should have enough onions in total, for fresh eating and for winter storage, to last us a year, if all goes well. With the bunching onions, I plan to dehydrate a lot of them, but will probably freeze some, too. We do use a lot of onions. I stopped to figure it out, and estimate we use about 200 yellow cooking onions a year, alone. Those are the ones we buy regularly. On top of that are the red onions, bunching onions and leeks we get more irregularly. We don’t usually buy shallots at all, because they are a fair bit more expensive. So it’s well worth the time end effort for us to grow a lot of onions! We won’t be trying this year, but I am hoping that by next year, we’ll be able to try growing leeks, too.
By the end if this year’s gardening, we’ll have a better handle on whether it’s worth it to keep growing from seed, or to go with buying sets. Growing from seed, for the amounts we’re after, takes up a lot of space, but there are more varieties available in seed than in sets. Either way, it’s going to be a trade off.
As a side note, we had company while I was working on the seeds.
I love that they’re coming around during the day now, when we can actually see them! :-D They are so beautiful!
Thanks to my dear brother and his wife, I had plenty of kibble to feed the kitties this morning. I would have emptied the bin this morning, otherwise.
Ginger was out and about, and covered in frost!
While the tips of their fur makes them look chilled, when I pet them or pick them up (at least the ones that allow me to!) feel surprisingly warm. Their winter undercoats are doing the job of keeping them somewhat insulated.
Once again, the heated water bowl was almost completely frozen over! I made sure all the water bowls were filled with warm water, before doing the kibble. Their food bowls are full, but even dry kibble must get pretty hard in these temperatures, as they definitely prefer the new kibble, which would be slightly less frozen! :-D The thermometer in the sun room has shown it to be typically half the outside temperature or warmer, so when we are in the -30’s C outside, it’s at about -15C. (-22F and 5F). So everything in there is definitely frozen, but the cats seem to find it better.
While filling the water bowls, I made sure to look into the cat house.
There had been at least three cat in there, but only Nostrildamus is socialized enough to not run off when I come near. I got the picture of him in mid meow! :-D
In the upper left of the photo, you can see the timer the heat bulb is plugged into. It had been propped against some screws in the joist, so that the light sensor faced the window, but it keeps falling half off one of them. I have not tried to put it back, since it just means it will turn on earlier than if it was facing the window, and warm things up. The cats do love sitting in the sun of that one window! What I’d love to do before next winter is find a way to make another shelter for them that takes advantage of passive solar heat. I was thinking of making a smaller version of the kibble house to hold the water bowls. I’m sure we have some old windows in the barn that can be used as a roof and maybe even a back wall.
As I was coming back from putting feed out for the deer and birds, I found Creamsicle Jr had shown up in the kibble house. I only got a brief look at his injured eye, and while the fur is still dirty around it, the eye itself is looking almost normal again.
I did not run the van or my mother’s car this morning, as the cold was already getting to me. I wasn’t up to having to open up both sets of garage doors so I could run the vehicles, in a wind chill of -46C/-51F I’ll bundle up again and head out after I finish this.
Check out our long range forecast!
Look at that!!! Not only are we supposed to consistently keep warming up over the next while, but by the 22nd and 23rd, we’re supposed to be around 0C!! (32F) Things will actually be melting!
Assuming the weather actually cooperates, and this polar vortex doesn’t decide to just hang out even longer. It has messed up the forecasts a few times, now.
I’ve been thinking warm thoughts in response. Which has meant looking at the websites of seed companies. I’ve gone so far as to start an account with Heritage Harvest Seed, and have been filling my Favourites list! We don’t need more seeds, and much of what I’ve added are sold out, anyhow. It’s still fun to look. I love the little write ups that come with each item. Half the time, the thing that convinces me to add something to my Favourites is the words “extremely rare!!” I love the idea of keeping rare varieties going. We’ll have the space to do it, as we clean up and prepare more of the property and eventually expand into the outer yard. Even if we don’t necessarily grow things for our own use, they won’t go to waste, and we’ll have the privilege of space to grow them for their seeds. With this company, I can be sure that they will grow in our climate, too, since they are even further North than we are, though we’re in the same zone. From other cold climate gardeners I’ve been hearing from, the company has an excellent reputation.
I will just have to resist the temptation of ordering more seeds when we already have so many, and more on the way!
Our internet connection repeatedly cutting out should make that easier. Most of the time, it means pages don’t load well, or don’t load completely. Oddly, the most common thing that will not load, no matter how many times I try reloading a page, is the “like” button. !!
Now it’s time to see if I’ll be able to publish this post now, or have to try again later! :-D
This is what we were at, when I would normally be heading outside to feed the critters. -40C/F At least the “real feel” was a bit warmer, though when I did go outside, there was enough of a wind to prove that wrong!
As I write this, several hours later, my phone’s app has us at -33C (-27F) with no wind chill. The app on my desktop has us at -36C (-33F) with a wind chill of -44C (-47F). Thankfully, what wind we do have is from the North, and our door faces South. As long as we’re sheltered by the south, it’s not too bad, but once I went around to the feeding station, what a different story! Even a slight breeze is brutal at these temperatures.
That cats were out and about, though! Mostly to sit in the sun, curled up like Nosy over here.
Last night, I was prepping a turkey for the crock pot (I’ve never done that before; I hope it turned out!) and made sure to keep some bits as a treat for the outside cats. It was probably about 10:30-11pm when I popped out to scatter it among the food bowls in the kibble house. I could see through the window of the cat house, the red light on the timer showing that the ceramic heat bulb was on. I also saw some white fur moving around, so there was at least one cat actually using it last night. When I came out this morning, I saw Junk Pile in there, and I think Nutmeg was in there, too. Ginger and Nosy were out by the house, and even Butterscotch popped up from somewhere while I was tending to the food and water. I saw Creamsicle Jr, too – he ran off just before I could catch him in the above photo. I was later able to see that his eye is looking almost normal again.
They’re active, they’re eating and drinking, and it’s too cold to fight, so they’re good.
We’ve been seeing a pair of deer showing up at the feeding station during the day, so I’m hoping we’ve got some good pictures. I think it’s a mom and her baby, though they are very close to the same size. Their fur is so dense right now! I know we have deer coming by during the night, but it’s nice to actually see them.
Meanwhile…
We got the call from our doctor this morning. After going over my husband’s file and the pain clinic recommendations, etc., he’s changing things up slowly over the next few months. So he’s got a change in one medication for this month, it’ll be changed again for the next two months, and then another medication the pain clinic talked about will be added. There will be no change to the opioids right now. All of this has already been faxed to the pharmacy, though he suggested we call them later, just to make sure they got it. They would be ready to pick up today, if we could get there.
As it is, I’m going to see if I can get my mother’s car going and try to make a trip to the post office/general store this afternoon. We’re almost out of cat food. :-(
Once again, none of the cats were in their cat house, and I wish I knew why. They were all looking like poor Nosy, here, covered in frost and looking miserable!
Amazingly, though, Nosy is in a warm spot, here. When I picked him up, his fur actually felt warm, from the sun. I took a scraper to the packed snow and cleared the front step so the mat and concrete is exposed. They’ll absorb warmth from the sun at least a little bit, and be more pleasant on the kitty toes.
After such a mild winter, nature is really giving us one last wallop! When I got up during the night, I checked the weather, and this is what we were at, just before 3am.
We were at -38C/-36F! While there was no wind chill at the time, the warnings are for wind chills between -40C and -50C. That’s -40F and -58F. And we’re not in southern Manitoba or southern Saskatchewan. We’re north central.
I stalled going outside, and yet even later in the morning, we were still at -36C/-33F, with a wind chill at -40C
The Dust and Dander rating was “extreme”, though. ??? What are they measuring for, and where, to get that rating, in these temperatures?
It’s hard to believe right now, but by Monday – just three days from now – we’re going to be hitting -16C/3F. We’re expected to stay in that range for about a week, and then we’ll be above -10C/14F and staying in that range. I’m even seeing a -2C/28F, in the long range forecast!
Of course, there’s always one last spring blizzard, but after these few days, that should be it for extreme cold for the season.
When it warmed up to -32C/-26F, with the “real feel” being warmer rather than colder, I finally headed outside.
The cats had no interest in food. There is still plenty out there. While there was still water in the heated water bowl, and it wasn’t completely frosted over, it was the warm water I was bringing out that they wanted!
In talking to my husband about it later, mentioning that the vehicles would be frozen, he commented “I guess you won’t be going in to pick up my prescriptions tomorrow.”
!!!
No. I won’t.
They do deliver to our area, but we don’t have a credit card and their wireless debit won’t work out here. I’ll have to phone them and see what we can arrange. I should ask to make sure they have my husband’s new prescriptions, too. If he’s off the opiates, we won’t be forced to wait until the last minute to get refills all the time.
This is another time of extra frustration. After we moved here, we talked to my brother a lot about what should be here, and what’s missing.
There used to be a heater in the garage. It was a kerosene heater. I believe it was my late brother that brought it out here, and I think all my brothers used it so they could work in the garage in the winter and not get frost bite. It is, of course, gone. Along with the huge, heavy compressor that had been in the garage (and, I’ve learned, two other large compressors that were in the barn are gone). If it were still here, we could have used it to warm up the garage enough to keep the vehicles from getting so frozen that driving them is a risk. As it is, there is nothing here that is capable of warming up such a large, uninsulated space.
There’s really only one person who would have taken it, even if that person may not have it in his possession, now. He’s done things like take furniture and given them away to others, so who knows where it’s at now.
I don’t waste my energy getting angry over all of this, but it does get frustrating, knowing that we are having a harder time over the oddest things, because of other people’s greed.
Ah, well. It is what it is. It’ll work out in the long term. We’ll just have to use it to become stronger and more resilient.
The Re-Farmer
Update: well, at least I’ve got some good news!
I talked to the pharmacy about my husband’s prescriptions, telling them that he had got a call from the pain clinic to follow up on his new medications. They had nothing on file for new prescriptions. I explained that when we saw the doctor after the pain clinic visit, they hadn’t called him yet, but he had assured us that if they recommended different medications, he would send the new prescription directly to the pharmacy, so we wouldn’t have to come back or make other appointments. So the call from the pain clinic was a surprise. They will call our doctor’s clinic and look into that.
Then I mentioned that our van is frozen and asked about delivery, and payment methods. It turns out that they can now do debit Visa! So we can pay for the meds and they will be delivered. It won’t be until Tuesday, because Monday is a holiday, but that’s still faster than if we had to do it ourselves!
If all goes well, not only will we have our prescriptions delivered here at the farm – with directions on how to find us – but they should include the new medications. If there’s any problem getting the prescriptions updated, I know they’ll call us and let us know.
So we at least have one less thing to deal with! Whoot!
The Re-Farmer 