Critters

Kitty status, and do I dare?

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

When heading out this morning, I was on the lookout for Creamsicle Jr., hoping to get as much of a look at his eye as I can.

Much to my surprise, the cats that showed up this morning all came from either around the house, or the outer yard. Not a single cat was in the cat shelter!

Ginger came running up, right away, after the jug of warm water. Even Nutmeg almost came close. Nutmeg does let me pet him, every now and then, but not today. Ginger likes to drink right out of the jug (he’s more careful about it, after knocking it over once!), so I left him to it while I kicked the frozen water bowls out of the snow and knocked out the ice. The heated water bowl was mostly frozen over, but not as much as yesterday. I tried looking in the windows into the cat’s house, but could see nothing to explain why they weren’t using it.

While I was taking care of the bird and deer feed (yesterday, we saw five deer come to the feeding station!) I was happy to see Creamsicle Jr.

I had to walk past him to go back to the sun room after putting bird and deer feed out, which he didn’t like, but that warm water was tempting enough that he didn’t run away completely. I tried to move slowly and carefully to get these pictures, trying not to scare him away.

It half worked.

He did not like me coming close.

You can see some frost on the tips of his fur. All of the cats that came out had frosted tips! I don’t know where they were sheltering instead of their cat house, but wherever it was had enough humidity to get them frosty.

The one eye does seem to be more open now. The dark whatever-it-is under his eye and next to his nose is actually something stuck and dangling from a bit of fur.

The poor thing looks so miserable! It’s frustrating, that we were not able to socialize him more over the summer. I really want to get a closer look at that eye and maybe give it a wash, but not even Ginger is socialized enough for that. Hopefully, whatever is wrong will heal up faster as we get warmer.

At the time I headed out, we were still at -34C, though the “real feel” put us at -32C (-29F/-25F). As I write this, the app on my desktop, from The Weather Network, has us at -33C with a “feels like” of -38C (-27F/-36F). It also says our high of the day is expected to be -24C with a “feels like” -33C (-11F/-27F). My Accuweather app on my phone, however, has us at -29C and a “real feel” of -27C (-20F/-16F) with a high of -21C (-6F) with the “real feel” expected to be -31C (-24F).

It’s supposed to get colder again for a few more days, then slightly milder for another couple of days. After that, we’re basically hitting spring and temperatures are expected to keep getting warmer and warmer. By the end of February and into March, we should be hovering just under freezing. So in the week after this polar vortex is finally gone, we’ll be warming up by about 30 degrees from what we’re at right now. It’s going to feel positively tropical. We’re going to be breaking out the shorts and t-shirts! :-D

So I’m going to have to take advantage of this relatively warm day and head into town. Making our monthly bulk shop is out the window for this month. Buying locally, little by little, has really wrecked our budget. It’s the things like cat food and litter that is so much more expensive here that messes up our numbers. I know a lot of people hate on Walmart, but it’s places like that, and their prices, that allow us to have the room in our budget to care for the cats, and ourselves, at the same time. At Walmart and Costco prices, we easily spend about $300 a month on cat food and litter. Buying the same quantities locally would be closer to $600.

My original plan had been to head out late this morning to hit the post office before the general store it’s located in closes for the afternoon, as they do every Wednesday. However, the mail can wait. I’ll head out in the afternoon, instead. I’ll be heading into town, first. The package my husband was supposed to get turns out to be with Purolator, not FedEx, and now they’re saying we’re not in their delivery zone. They never said that when they first phoned him about it. It has been delivered to a depot in town and we’ve got 5 business days to pick it up. Fair enough. I can take advantage of that side trip to fill our gas tank (at a non co-op gas station, so we don’t end up with more than $400 in damages again) along the way. I’ve already gone over my planned route with a daughter. I’ll be going to the Walmart in a smaller city. They don’t have as much available there, but my sister lives not too far from there, so if the van breaks down on the road, I can call her for help.

I’ll be taking a route that will take longer, but the highway runs through a number of small towns. I know I’ll have a cell phone signal along there, too. My usual route would be first to the town my mother lives in, and the cell phone dead zone covers most of that drive. There’s nothing but isolated farms in between. From that town, I would cut across to a different highway, take the highway to another cross road before finally reaching the highway that goes to the city I am aiming for. The entire route is basically open land with a few farmhouses tucked away behind shelter belts, well away from the roads. The only towns I would go through, between home and this city, is the town my mother lives in, and the village near my sister’s farm.

I sometimes think I’m being ridiculous about this. I grew up there, and I’ve moved back to this area with my own family a couple of times over the decades. At one point, we lived in a house my parents owned, maybe 3 miles away from where we are now, and my husband was one of the many people who made the commute to the city. We are not strangers to these temperatures and road conditions, and didn’t think twice of packing the kids into the car and making a trip to the city just to see a movie. Back then, however, we had a car that was only 3-5 years old, and we were all younger and able bodied.

The van we have now is almost 15 years old and has well over 400,000km on it. We depend on that van more than we’ve depended on any vehicle before. Partly because, with his disability, it’s the vehicle my husband can get in and out of, and has room for his walker. Partly because it allows us to do those monthly shops that would never fit in any car we’ve ever owned.

Thankfully, we do have my mother’s car as a back up vehicle. It’s a couple of years newer than ours and has half the mileage, but has had a remarkable number of problems with it, and not just because of my mother’s terrifying driving habits. After discovering what happened with our van, I’ve already asked the mechanic about checking it over when we bring her car in for an oil change. My mother bought her gas at the co-op gas stations, too, so it may well be pretty clogged up. It would explain things like the terrible mileage. It’s still a relief to have it. We may not use it much, and the registration and insurance costs more than for our van, but being as much in the boonies as we are, it’s worth that expense to have access to a second vehicle, just in case.

Bah. I’m rambling right now. Nerves. I really don’t want to make this trip, but we just can’t afford to buy what we need locally. They often don’t even have any inventory left for things like the bigger boxes of cat litter (almost half the size of what I can get at Walmart or Costco, but almost double the price!). Other things, we just can’t get locally.

But hey! In the time it took to write this, it has warmed up a degree! :-/

Time for another cup of tea.

The Re-Farmer

It’s actually a bit warmer…

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

The deep freeze continues, though today we are actually a bit warmer. As I write this, we have reached -24C, though the wind chill puts us at -36C (-11.2F/-32.8F).

If I were not waiting for a phone call from my lawyer, I would have gone at least to the smaller city in the area, to do the bulk shopping we have yet to manage this month. Tomorrow is supposed to be much the same as today, then temperatures will drop again for a few more days, so I am shooting to make the trip tomorrow.

I really wish I could trust our vehicles more. Perhaps I’m being over cautious, but we’ve had so many vehicle problems over the years, I can’t help it! By the middle of the month, things are going to warm up quite a bit again, and I’d rather wait until then, but there are things we will run out off, before then. Mostly cat food and litter.

The heated water bowl was almost completely frozen over. That hole was kept open by the cats themselves, as they drank!

Creamsicle Jr’s eye seems to be stuck completely shut. Zooming in with the camera is the best I can do to see it, as he takes off if I come any closer. The poor thing. This winter has been rough on him!

The Re-Farmer

“Outdoor activity is potentially life threatening…”

/ Re-Farmer / 13 Comments

My older daughter were both up late again, chatting about the frigid temperatures we’ve been having. She joked about a comment she read on her phone’s weather app, so I just had to check mine.

This was screen capped at just past 1:30am. -32C wit the wind chill bringing it down to -40C.

Also known as -25.6F/-40F

My daughter had been chatting with an international group of people and the temperatures had come up. After she told them what we were at, someone from the US responded with a “oh, for a minute there, I thought you mean Fahrenheit!” They were rather shocked to find out that -40 is the same for both. :-D

That whole “potentially life threatening” warning, though. Yikes!

As I am writing this, The Weather Network app has us at -31C/-45C (-23.8F/-49F), while my Accuweather app on my phone has us warmed up to -30C/-42C (-22F/-43.6F).

Our expected high of -27C isn’t supposed to happen until late this afternoon, so it was bundle up time to do the morning rounds.

I made sure to have nice, warm water for the kitties!

I am concerned about Creamsicle Jr.

I noticed something wrong with is left eye a few days ago. He won’t let me near him, though, so zooming in with my phone’s camera is the best I can do to get a better look.

I can’t tell if it’s a scratch over his eye, or if his eye is leaking.

Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about it. We can’t catch him to even get a closer look, never mind putting him in a carrier and driving him to a vet.

Poor thing. As if putting up with these temperatures wasn’t bad enough on its own. :-(

The Re-Farmer

I am so ready for spring

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

This has been a mild winter, overall.

Honest. It really has.

Then there are days like today.

I was once again up way too late, and took this screen shot just before 1:30am.

We had reached -27F with a wind chill of -42C.

For my visitors in the US, that’s -16.6F and -43.6F

I think this is the first time I’ve seen the “dust & dander” part not say “extreme”. LOL

Of course, before heading outside to do my rounds, I checked the temperatures again.

This was screen capped just after 8am.

“Extreme Cold Warning” Yeah. No s***, Sherlock! LOL

At -30C and a wind chill of -46C (-22F/-50.8F), I waited a couple of hours before heading out.

The windchill had dropped to -45C by then. That was it.

This was a day to layer up – and skip most of my rounds, including switching out the memory cards on the trail cams. I fed the critters and that was basically it.

When I opened the door, I found a very friendly face waiting for me!

My brother’s dog just loves these temperatures!

He was also really, really hoping the kitties would come out to play!

They did not. :-D

This old doghouse was built for dogs as big as him – and even bigger – so he could go inside, if he really wanted to. Thankfully, he’s done no more than sniff at the entry and pine over the cats through the windows, tail wagging furiously! If he tried to go in, I think the cats would explode! :-D

windchill

As I write this, we’ve “warmed up” to -29C/-44C (-20.2F/-47.2F). Our high of the day is forecast to be only a few degrees warmer.

We’re supposed to stay cold like this for about a week. Two days from now is supposed to be the coldest day before it starts warming up again, but the warm up is going to be very slow.

Polar vortexes suck.

Image source

Thankfully, we are stocked up well enough, even though we haven’t done our monthly shop. The only thing we’re going to run out of is wet cat food for the inside cats, and they can make do with dry kibble for a few days!

I have to add, I’m not really complaining. We’re warm inside, the hot water tank is still working, as are the well and septic pumps. Our internet may be ridiculously unstable, but we’ve got electricity. When I was a child growing up here, we didn’t have running water or an indoor bathroom until the mid 1970’s, which is when the new part of the house was added on, so there was 7 of us squeezed into the original part of the house. We had electricity, but power outages were common until about the 80’s. Even in winter, we used the outhouse by the garage (though my parents did set up a bucket in the basement to use at night) and a bathtub in the pump shack, where there was a wood burning cook stove to heat the water (and the uninsulated shack!).

We’ve got it pretty good, here! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Problem found

/ Re-Farmer / 11 Comments

What a lovely day we are having today!

As I write this, we are at -5C/23F, and are expected to get a bit warmer. After the deep freeze we just had, this is feeling downright tropical!

I meant to post this picture yesterday, but I just didn’t have the brain space to do a blog post, so I’m sharing it today!

Their matched, angry looking expressions make me giggle. :-D

There were lots of kitties out while I was doing their food and water this morning.

The Potato Beetle brought luggage.

This was attached to his tail! A whole lot of stuff, stuck to a couple of burrs, stuck to his tail. The blue is from the tarp covering the kibble house. It looks like there’s some jute cord in there, too, and I have no idea where that would be from. I haven’t used any outside, yet. You don’t get a real sense of perspective on the size in the photo. It was like he had a small birds nest stuck to him!

Nostrildamus was quite eager for attention this morning.

He was trying to climb onto me while I was taking is picture. I am so happy with this shot!

Butterscotch was out and about, too, and followed me around. She let me carry her back to the house, and I took advantage of the cat house roof. I put her down on it, then kept petting her, and was finally able to get a really good look at her wounded leg. The gash is completely closed and barely visible. If there were not a suture in the middle of it, I probably would not have been able to spot it, as she moved around.

The whole area is still nekkid. The fur is not really growing back at all, yet. Which means she’s cold, all on the inside of her thigh. Which is better than a gaping wound, of course, but I can tell she’s uncomfortable when she sits in the snow.

Meanwhile…

I took the van in to the garage yesterday. When I got there, I went over again with him about what the van was doing (he sees so many vehicles, I’m not going to assume he remembers everything I told him before! LOL), and he asked a few questions.

When I had come to the front door I saw, for the first time, a sign about masking. Most other places have them plastered all over, but he had just the one on the door. So I paused to put on my Mingle Mask before going in. There was no one else inside and, while he had his back to me when I came into the office, I could see he wasn’t wearing a mask, so I asked “can I take this thing off?” He said yes as he turned around, then saw the Mingle Mask. He had this “wtf is that?” look on his face, so I told him, I can’t wear a mask, but I can breathe with this.

As we were talking and I gave him the keys, I mentioned I was going to go to the grocery store across the street, but might have to come back. There’s no place else to go to wait. He told me to take my time at the grocery store, because he’s not allowed to have people wait in his office anymore. Which is ridiculous, considering how much space he’s got in there.

I did take my time with the groceries, but still ended up sitting outside and waiting. Thankfully, the grocery store has a picnic table in a sheltered corner, where the staff takes their smoke breaks. While I was there, a woman came by for a smoke and we chatted for a bit. After a while, I walked into the parking lot to check, and saw that my van was outside the garage door. I asked if it might be okay to bring the cart over there to unload it, but she saw I had two of the big water jug refills and said it would be really hard to get the cart through the snow. Instead, she helped me bring it into the vestibule, moving a divider for me, so I got get it nearer the exit doors. There was a staff member in charge of cleaning the carts, and she ended up keeping an eye on my groceries for me, while I went back to the garage. She even offered to help me load the water jugs when I came back with the van! They were so sweet. :-)

As for the van…

The mechanic was outside when I came over – it turned out he had just tried phoning me, but I never heard my cell phone ring! As I came up, the first thing he asked me was, where do I buy my fuel?

We always but our fuel at either Costco (usually once a month, though we haven’t been to Costco for quite a while) or at a co-op. As members, we get a check at the end of the fiscal year, with the amount based on how much gas or groceries we buy, though I haven’t tried to shop at the local co-op grocery store since the restrictions went nuts.

As soon as I told him it was at the co-op, he just shook his head.

My EGR (exhaust gas re-circulation) valve needs to be replaced.

I had no idea what that was, so he explained it to me. It’s no wonder I didn’t know what it was. It’s been so long since I’ve tinkered with engines, they didn’t even have these, yet. I was aware of the EGR valve’s function in newer vehicles, but not as part with a name to it.

Gosh, I suddenly feel old.

He told me the co-op gas stations have the worst quality fuel available. This is something I’ve heard others saying, too, but I didn’t seem to be having any problems, so…

Yeah.

It turns out he sees this a lot, and every time he does, it’s people who buy their gas at the co-ops. The crappy fuel leaves behind a lot of carbon, and these valves end up completely clogged. He said they can sometimes be cleaned, but usually need replacing. I figure, by the time he sees the vehicles, they’re long past the stage where the valve can be just cleaned out!

This is in line with my brother’s thoughts when I described what the van was doing, though he hadn’t specifically mentioned the EGR valve. It might even be why our van sometimes doesn’t want to start at all – something it did with the mechanic one time, as he tried to drive the van into the garage when I had the winter tires put on. That was a problem we’ve had every now and then, since we got the van. Whoever owned it before us did not maintain it well, and we spent an awful lot of money getting it fixed up after we bought it. Considering we got it at a price low enough, I could use my debit card to pay for it, I suppose we can’t really complain!

So while it’s only been a little over 3 years that we’ve been buying this gas, if there were already a build up in the valve before, it would have gotten a lot worse, a lot faster.

As I think about it, I realize that if we weren’t in the habit of doing a monthly shop, with the van being so heavily loaded, we probably would not have noticed it was becoming a problem, and likely would have kept going for months, if not years, before catching it.

The part is being ordered, and I am bringing the van back on Thursday morning. It’s going to cost $425, plus taxes.

*sigh*

I won’t be getting my new chainsaw this month! :-D

While we were in his office, booking the next appointment, he saw someone coming in and quickly put a mask on, so I quickly put my Mingle Mask on, too, so as not to get him in trouble. We were both muttering under our breath about not being able to breath without a mask, never mind with one. I think he he’s medically exempt, too, but is being forced to wear one when customers are around. This town has an awful lot of Covid Karens that would eagerly phone the snitch lines, or the police, on anyone they deem non-complaint. At least he’s alone in the shop, most of the time, and can take it off to breathe.

(Which reminds me; my doctor is going to refer me to a respiratory specialist. The puffer he got me to try has made no difference, and this is now something for the specialists. Hopefully, I will get someone better than the last respiratory specialist I saw, when we lived in the city. His conclusion had been, I’m fat, so that must be why I’m coughing, and he would react with open surprise when test after test came back showing me normal and healthy. :-/ Then he just gave up and sent me back to my regular doctor.)

Meanwhile, the van should be okay to drive, though I will be avoiding heavy loads until after the valve is replaced. He assured me that, while it might keep stalling on me, I would be able to restart it and keep on going. Once it’s replaced, that sluggishness I was noticing should go away, as well. It seems quite a few little things I was noticing, including the fuel economy dropping and the idle starting to sound rougher, were probably all warning signs of this problem.

Now I’m wondering about my mother’s car. She always bought fuel at the co-op, too, and I’ve noticed it has terrible mileage.

After booking the appointment and loading up the groceries, I filled the gas tank on the way home.

At a different gas station!

Dang it. One of our favourite places to stop on the way to the city was the co-op gas station in my mother’s town. There are such wonderful people working there, plus they’ve got an excellent convenience store. But getting a few bucks a year back isn’t anywhere near enough to make up for having to pay over $400 to fix the damage it causes. :-/

We’ll probably still stop there, just to go into the store for snacks, home baked by one of the gas jockeys. <3

So that’s where we are at, with the van situation. It’s going to be an expensive fix, but knowing what’s wrong is actually a huge relief.

I must admit, though; I’m getting really, really tired of vehicle problems. It’s a lot more stressful, when living in such relative isolation, because we depend on having a vehicle so very much. That’s one of the more major downsides of living out here. :-(

The Re-Farmer

Count ’em, plus a preview

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

There are eight cats in this picture.

Can you spot them all? :-D

These guys sure do make my mornings!

I also have a preview to share.

I experimented with the no-knead, overnight dough recipe I’d made before, using the old dough bread baby from my Babcia’s bread experiment.

I didn’t take any process photos this time, since I was winging it. The “overnight” dough became an “over day” dough, for starters! :-D

Instead of making a pair of loaves, I made one giant loaf in a parchment paper lined lasagna pan.

As I was spreading the dough out as evenly as I could, I found myself thinking it was looking a bit like a focaccia. Too bad we’re out of olive oil.

Then I remembered… we still have some fake truffle oil (the only kind we can find, or afford!) left.

I ended up drizzling the top with the fake truffle oil, spreading the oil around evenly, then stabbing the dough with my fingers to make lots of little holes, which also helped even the dough out in the pan more, before sprinkling on some coarse salt and dried parsley.

Of course, it wasn’t real a focaccia recipe, and it rose quite a bit. This is how it turned out.

This turned out to be, hands down, the best bread I have ever baked! Definitely a winner!!

I think the next time I try this, I’ll use a baking sheet instead of the lasagna pan, to make a thinner bread. Mostly, because I think it’ll be easier to slice than this was, but it’ll also give a larger surface for the oil and salt crust. The texture and flavour it gave was amazing!

Next time, I will definitely take process shots and share the details here!

The Re-Farmer

Yeah, I’m a suck for the kitties!

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

As I write this, we have warmed up to -26C/-14.8F, with a wind chill of -30C/-22F It’ll keep warming up for the next couple of days, and tomorrow – Christmas Day – is now expected to reach a balmy -5C/23F!

When I headed out this morning to tend the critters (I have been skipping most of my rounds outside right now!), I was surprised to find no kitties in the cat house, though a couple were outside. I know they had been in the shelter last night, as I went out to give them a treat. We set our turkey to brine overnight, and I cut up the organs, neck and excess skin as a treat for them. All of which was frozen solid. It doesn’t look like any of the cats braved the cold for the treat at all! In fact, most of the kibble was untouched. I do put some just inside the door of the cat house, and most of that was gone, but I think it’s just too cold. Even dry kibble freezes and can be harder to eat, I think.

As I was putting out fresh warm water and topping up the kibble with some that wasn’t frozen, I could hear a plaintive meowing. I spotted Nosy, out by the storage house, tucked under a lilac bush. He is normally a quiet kitty, but this morning, he was just looking at me pathetically and complaining.

So, I shoveled a path for him.

There was already a slight path in the snow, showing where they had been leaping through the snow to get to and from the shelters. They were very happy to not have to do that anymore! You can see that Nosy immediately took advantage of the situation to get to the food, no longer complaining. :-) Even Ginger was happy for the path. :-D

There were plenty of deer tracks in the snow around the house, including here, where you can see they were trying to get at the ornamental apples. These apples are smaller than cherries, but food is food! The snow at the feeding station was well trampled and dug up, as both deer and birds tried to get at the buried feed.

Now that the critters are fed, it’s time to get to work for our non-traditional Wigilia feast tonight.

Just in case I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow, I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. May you all be warm and cozy, and your days filled with joy and blessings. May the new year bring you peace, good health and abundance!

Wszystkiego Najlepszego
image source

From the Re-Farmer family to yours!

Frosty morning, and… stuff (updated)

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I headed out to do my morning rounds a bit on the late side, yet there was still frost in the air!

It was looking downright foggy, in fact.

Everything looked like a fairy tale, sparkling away!

Even the ugly wires used for fencing looked beautiful. I love how the lichen on this fence post looks, all frosted up!

Taking photos was a bit of a challenge at times, though!

They just wanted to keep their paws warm. Butterscotch didn’t even growl and hiss at Potato Beetle when he jumped up my back!

While checking out the garden areas, I could see from the tacks in the snow where the deer have been going around. I knocked some of the frozen crab apples they can’t reach, down to the ground. The sunflower stalks have been completely denuded, except for the tallest ones. Those were denuded as high as the deer could reach! :-D

The birds are eating the sunflowers a little bit.

I bent all the taller ones that still have leaves and seed heads, so the deer can now reach them to nibble on.

Part of the reason I was out later was because I got a phone call from my older brother this morning. He called me back while I was out, and he is keeping my updated.

He got a call from my mother, very early this morning. Her stomach has been hurting since Friday, and she wanted him to drive her to the hospital.

Keep in mind that, for him, it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive to her place, but only 20 minutes for me – and I have her car. She wanted him to drive her, though.

*sigh*

Getting information out of her was like pulling teeth, of course. In the end, though, it sounds like she has been eating too many oranges. It also sounds like she has really bad gas. She has acid reflux, which she doesn’t understand no matter how many times I’ve tried to describe it to her. I’ve given her easy to read, colour coded lists of what she can safely eat, and what she should avoid. The lists have disappeared. All citrus fruits, tomatoes and onions are things she should avoid, but she loves them and eats them anyway. Small amounts wouldn’t be an issue, but mandarins are in season now, and cheap, so she’s been buying them by the box full. She does think it might be the oranges that are causing her grief, but she thinks that, because the price went down and they’re from China, she had to have eaten a bad orange.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after updating me on the situation, my brother called the health line, since it’s been made clear hospitals really don’t want people going in right now. The health line couldn’t tell him much, since they were not talking directly to my mother, but in the end he was told to take her in, simply because of her age.

*sigh*

My brother called me back on hands free, while we was on the way to pick her up to update me.

*sigh*

…

I just got a call back from my brother. He has dropped our mother off at the hospital. It seems she also had breathing issues at night (which she often has, while trying to sleep) and nausea (also not unusual for her). They were able to take her right in, but he couldn’t come in with her. He did have a chance to explain things to the person at the entry – particularly about our mother’s difficulty in understanding the questions she is being asked. My brother was told he could go home, but with how long the drive is, he’s just going to hang around town until it’s time to pick her up or they call him. He was satisfied that they were taking her seriously and taking good care of her, so there’s that, at least.

So today will be a day when I stay close to the phone. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Update: Well that has to be the fastest ER visit ever! My brother called the contact number to check on our mother, only to be told they were just finishing with her and he could come pick her up. She’s got some anti-biotics, and she’s good to go.

Well… I suppose that’s one way for my mother to get my brother to “visit” her… :-/

A (furry) Morning Mystery

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

These guys are no mystery at all, of course…

These are my morning smiles!

If you notice strings hanging down from under the roof of the kibble house, I left those for the cats to play with, after tying down the tarp I put over it last night. :-)

When I do my morning rounds, I don’t typically go all the way around the two old dog houses we’d set up near the outhouse as critter shelter last winter. The last time I went around them was when I took some of the straw to bury in what became our garlic beds. Some time between then and now, this showed up.

This is in front of the opening of the bigger dog house, facing away from the house.

That’s quite a lot of fur.

There is no skin attached to any of it. No sign of blood or bones. So this is not the remains of an animal that was killed and eaten.

Since I can’t really see into the old dog house, I turned the flash on on my phone’s camera, stuck it in the opening, and got this.

It looks like more fur, and even a pile of droppings in the corner near the opening.

If it were spring time, I would be thinking this is some animal shedding its winter fur. Usually, we just see tufts, but it’s possible an animal would use the sides of the opening to scratch off mats of itchy old fur.

But it’s not spring. So nothing is shedding their fur right now.

I don’t even recognize the fur to know what type of animal it is. Any animal I can think of is unlikely to be in our yard, and certainly not using the old dog house.

Well, at least I know that these old dog houses are still being used by critters for shelter!

The Re-Farmer

Taking stock

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Of course, I just have to start with my morning smiles!

I am so glad we were able to build the kibble house for the outside cats. It’s working out really well! We have about 5 days of warm weather coming up next week. The perfect time to add a sheet of rigid insulation under the floor boards, then add another board across the front, to keep the containers from being knocked out. Hopefully, the winds will have died down more by then. We don’t have anywhere near the high winds we had yesterday, but it’s still too windy to be trying to work with things that become sails! :-D

Speaking of winds, my morning rounds were a bit more extensive, as I checked to see what damage there might be. I found the back doors of the barn were actually starting to pull open. They are double doors, with one side “latched” at the lintel, while the other split door is held in place by the first one. If it weren’t for the bar holding the one side in place as much as it did, no doubt that both sides would have been flung open. As it is, they were pulled open far enough that the split door was barely held in place.

Even one of the garage doors were my mother’s car is parked were being blown open. We finally had to roll and old tire, still on its rim, in front of it to keep it from blowing open. Those doors are supposed to be held in place with spring latches at the time, but the piece one of them latches into has broken, and both sides of the door are sagging. Another thing on the list of things to fix!

The tarp I put over my late brother’s post pounder is being torn to shreds. I’ve tried tying it down more, but the recent winds have undone all of that, and more. I was at least able to cover the motor with a plastic bag until I can find another tarp large enough to cover the whole thing.

Oddly, I found a piece of aluminum blown onto a stack of wood by the old garden shed. It’s the same material the eaves-troughs on the house are made of, though it’s not a trough; more like an edge piece. I have no idea where it blew in from! Still, when the girls are on the roof to clean out the eaves-troughs on the second level, it’ll be a good time to check the roof for damage in places we can’t see from the ground.

We also lost another tree in the spruce grove. Not a spruce, this time.

One tree broke off about 8 or 9 feet up, and another next to it lost its top. Not too bad for losses, all things considered.

Cleaning up in the spruce grove was my goal for the past 2 summers, and it just didn’t happen. We really need to get in there and clean out all the dead wood. It’s quite the fire hazard, and the area is almost impassable. In checking out the latest breakages, I was pleased to see there’s quite a lot of red bark dogwood, as well as wild roses, in the area – two things that I want to encourage the growth of, as we clean out other things. In time, the plan is to transplant more spruces into the spruce grove. So many have died, it’s almost not a spruce grove any more! A lot of what we’ll be taking out of the grove are small poplars. These are pretty flexible and springy when they’re small, so we are planning to find ways to use them to make things like arbors, trellises, and other things, where I plan to use bent wood. The larger ones that will be cut down will be used as support posts. Among the things we want to make is an arbor with a gate to put on one side of the driveway gate. This is for when people come by, to make deliveries or whatever, while the gate is locked, so they don’t have to climb over the gate to get in, potentially damaging the hinges. I also want to make combination benches and climbing trellises to set up in different areas around the yard. It’ll be good to be able to actually use the small trees we’ll have to clear out to make useful and pretty things, rather than just adding them to the chipper piles.

I also made a run into town today. I was intending to do it yesterday, but just did not want to drive in those winds. Especially since I wanted to swing by the cemetery with some artificial flowers my mother gave me to put at the graves of our family. While there, I took the time to pick up and replace some of the stuff from other graves that got blown around, but some of them, I just couldn’t tell where the things had come from, so I just set them aside.

Among the things I had to get in town was more bird feed and suet, and I’ve also picked up deer feed. From the droppings I’m finding, they are coming around more often. We will start leaving out small amounts for them to get used to finding it here again, but at this time of year, it’s more like dessert. There is plenty of wild food available for them.

I just checked our long range forecast. When I last looked, tomorrow was supposed to be one more cooler day, then it would warm up over the next few. Now it’s saying the next two days will reach highs of 11C, then highs of 9C for the next couple of days after that! So we’ve got 4 days to do as much as possible outdoors before it starts dipping below freezing again. It’s looking to be a pretty mild November, but I still really want to get more mulch on the tulips the girls planted, in particular. The eaves-troughs are the only essential thing left that needs to be done; the rest is stuff that we’d like to get done, but if we don’t, it’s not a big deal. We shall see what we manage. Tomorrow, it’ll be on the girls for the most part, since the van has been re-booked for the garage for then.

I will be very happy to get that oil change done, and those winter tires on, before winter really hits!

The Re-Farmer