Critters

Productive

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’ve just got home from errands and just realized, it’s not even 1pm as I start this! It feels like it should be later.

I needed to go to the town north of us to pick up our beef share this morning, so I asked my daughter to do the morning rounds while I checked on the truck and stuff. The front tires were just low enough to be worth firing up the compressor and topping them up. It was -24C/-11F with a wind chill of -32C/-26F at the time, so I ran the engine for a while, too. I did have to shut it off while pumping one of the tires, though. The breeze was blowing the exhaust right into that corner of the garage!

I did help my daughter as she was feeding the outside cats, giving the isolation babies, their wet cat food treat. Eye Baby really wanted out this morning! Well, it’ll just be one more day. Tomorrow, we will be opening up the door and setting the entry box over the opening again, so cats can freely go in and out again.

I left quite early so that I could get other stuff done before meeting up in our usual spot to get our beef share. The general store out post office is in closes at noon today, so I figured I’d try the post office, first.

Zero mail, still. Not even junk mail. The back-to-work order came into effect yesterday, though. I expect rural communities are going to be pretty low on the priority list for getting deliveries.

So I picked up a sandwich (freshly made at our one restaurant, kitty corner across the street) and a drink for my breakfast, then headed north.

My first stop was the feed store, and to look for heated water bowls.

They did have small heated water bowls, which is what I was after, since the big ones stop working so quickly. The price was insane, though. The volume it holds is less than our small heated water bowls, but it cost as much as a large one. The quality, however, was noticeably better. With everywhere else being out of stock, I went ahead and got one, along with a couple more 40 pound bags of kibble.

For the beef share delivery, we always meet in a grocery store parking lot – the only grocery store in town – and I still had time, so I went in to do a bit of shopping. I didn’t need much, and the prices for most things are quite a bit higher, but they have a remarkable selection for such a rural store, so I took my time looking around to see if there was something else I wanted to get besides a carton of milk. 😄 I did end up getting some buttermilk, which I rarely do. I think it will be great for the next time we make cornbread.

That done, I didn’t have very long to wait in the truck before the lady arrived with my beef share. We could only do a 1/8th share this time, so it was just two boxes. The shares were smaller this year, as they butchered heifers this year instead of steers, so with our monthly payments, we actually ended up with a refund. I would like to do a quarter beef again, so I asked about the possibility of sending them payments starting in January.

She asked me to hold off on that. They need to figure out what they will be doing this year. They already had to switch to beef shares only, moving away from the individual cuts and freezer packs. The market price they would get for their beef is pretty good right now, so it doesn’t make sense for them to hold onto cattle through to the fall right now. Plus, with everything becoming more expensive in general, they are going to have to increase their price. Right now, with the beef shares, they are charging $6.50/pound hanging weight, and they’ll be losing money if they don’t adjust that. She won’t know until March or so, what direction they will be going. Once that’s worked out, she has a list of regular customers – including us – that they will contact directly. If we don’t find out until March, though, we’ll probably end up doing a 1/8th beef again, which she understands.

As we were talking, we shared some frustrations. For her, as someone who sells beef shares, she has a real problem with other ranchers that sell their shares at a fixed price, rather than by weight. You never know until you get the hanging weight, how much each share will actually work out to be. Which is how we ended up with a refund. You can’t just decide a whole beef will be X amount ahead of time, and then divide it by whatever share someone is getting. At least, not ethically! It makes things harder for ranchers like her, too, because people catch on that they’re not being charged fairly. I didn’t even know there were people selling beef shares with fixed prices. I’ve only see it done by weight.

So we shall see how things work out for them. Meanwhile, I’ll just set the payments I would be making to them aside. I would rather send it to them, to help feed the animal we will be eating, but that’s okay. And if they end up not doing beef shares next year, well, that’s just more in the savings account.

With my other errands done, it was straight home after picking up the beef. I pulled into the yard to unload, then gave the outside cats a small feeding to get them away from the truck so I could park it.

Once that was done, I empties the boxes into the freezer. With the extra shopping we’ve done for Christmas and New Years, there isn’t a lot of room! We couldn’t have fit a quarter beef in there, that’s for sure.

We got quite a few 2 pound packages of ground beef, a whole lot of steaks and several roasts, plus beef bones. Now that we have the Instant Pot, I’m thinking we could try using it to make bone broth – something with onions and garlic in it, so it’s for our own use only, not for the cats! I actually found some packages of bones, both beef and pork, while making space in the freezer. They’re starting to get freezer burned, so we should make some broth with them for the cats – and free up some freezer space!

Once that was put away, I took down the old extension cord that the fried out heated water bowl had been plugged into, and replaced it with the new one I picked up not long ago, then set up the new water bowl. There was still some liquid water in the fried out bowl, so I poured that into the new bowl. Remarkably, the water started getting slushy on top, rather quickly! I got the critter cam plugged in, too, and at first it didn’t work. The app told me the camera was offline. ?? I plugged things in and out a few times and it started working, so I don’t know quite what went wrong.

The new bowl has been accepted, though!

The old one, with nothing but ice in it, got set aside not far from there the heat lamp is. It might actually get warm enough to melt under there. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of the cats using the heat lamp, it can stay there.

I had lots of curious kitties while I was setting up the new extension cord!

I was done and tying off the outside doors again when I noticed there were three amigos at the window, watching me, so I decided to take their picture.

I ended up catching a bit of action!

So much for being amigos! 😄

Anyhow.

Everything is now brought in, put away and set up.

It’s been a productive day, and that makes me happy.

The Re-Farmer

Catching up and planning ahead

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, the cuteness!

I just got back from doing the evening outside cat feeding. When I got to the isolation shelter, Kohl was right at the sliding window. She didn’t want food – she wanted attention!

So I gave it to her for as long as I could. She actually made it hard to close the sliding window, because she kept pushing her head through. I did take her out to cuddle her, which she was good with until she wanted back in, but she still wanted pets!

Eye Baby also wanted attention, but the fluffy male is still a stranger. I was able to pet him this morning, while he was eating wet cat food, but that was all he would tolerate. Eye Baby, once the way was clear, was as demanding of pets through the window as Kohl was.

None of them have shown any interest in trying to “escape” the isolation shelter.

In other things…

Last night, I got a message from my brother. Sadly, seeing me at the church closing service triggered our vandal. I thought thing had gone well, but nope. He left another message with my brother. He had some pretty nasty things to say about me, and my younger daughter in particular, and her beard. Of course, he has no idea about her PCOS – or anything else. He hasn’t seen my daughters in years, and only seen me in passing. How he even knows this, I don’t know, because I have no idea who else we have in common that would have described her to home – or why they would do that in the first place.

In the end, he was telling my brother to kick us out. He wants my brother living here, not us. He’s also demanding to meet face to face with my brother. My brother spent years asking to talk to our vandal, trying to find out what happened between them, and our vandal never responded. Now, he’ll insult my brother in the messages while demanding they meet face to face? Oh, and using his cancer as a weapon to try and manipulate my brother, just like he used my late brother and late father to try and manipulate my mother for so many years.

For someone who says he’s dying, he sure doesn’t look or sound like it. Not that that means anything.

My poor brother was really upset. He transcribed the message for me, which meant he listened to it over and over. I quite understand how traumatic that can be. I’ve had to do similar, years ago.

After we had a chance to talk, I ended up sending a message to my neighbour that had ranted at me in the church parking lot. I was going to not bother, but after the message – and a comment our vandal made that suggested to me that he and our neighbour had talked about what happened, since our vandal was already inside the church when some things were said – I changed my mind.

I didn’t address a lot of issues, but did point out some things our vandal has clearly been lying to him about, included the transcription of the new message and attached the last two, which were much more vile, as well. I also called him out on how he treated me and told him, never again. I told him, I wasn’t angry with him (I don’t waste my energy on anger) and I don’t hold grudges, but if he’s got a problem with me, we can have a conversation, but not that.

This morning, I found a brief response from him saying we could have a conversation, but he was pretty blindsided by things. Which is totally understandable. I hate that he has been dragged into the mess like this. I love him like another brother, though, and I would hate to lose his friendship over what our vandal is doing.

At this point, I’m am thinking it may be time to consult a lawyer to see what sort of legal action we can take. It’s not just about the slander anymore, when he is demanding my brother evict us. The irony is, one of the reasons we are here at all is because of our vandal. My brother and his wife were going to move here and rent their property out, but between our vandal and my mother’s mistreatment of my brother, they (rightfully) changed their minds.

Meanwhile, I just got a call from a hospital about my mother. She has finally been booked for an MRI.

On New Year’s day.

Before 8am.

Good grief.

Still, we had to take it. Otherwise, she would have been put on the bottom of the waiting list and who knows how long it would take for the next appointment they could get her.

Overall, though, today was a quiet home day. Tomorrow morning, I’m booked to pick up our beef share, then the day after, I’m booked to do my mother’s grocery shopping.

In the middle of everything else, I’m going to be starting my garden analysis posts. I’ve already started organizing notes and going through old garden blog posts. Normally, I would have done this in November, but that just didn’t work out.

It’s going to be interesting. So much changed from what our plans were, to what we actually ended up doing in the garden. All of which will help us decide what we will be doing next year, though with the direct winter sowing done in the fall, quite a bit of that is already decided!

So, for the next while, there should be quite a few gardening posts before Christmas!

In fact, I’m about to stary my first one, next.

I hope that others can learn from them as much as I do!

The Re-Farmer

Walking in a winter wonderland…

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, okay. Maybe more shoveling, than walking!

It sure does look beautiful out there, though.

We’ve had a gentle snowfall all night. It has stopped for a while, but we’ll be getting a little big more, this evening.

We were actually already at our high of the day (-1C/30F) when I headed out to do the morning rounds, and it will be slowly cooling down for the next couple of days.

As relatively warm as it was, that didn’t stop this kitty from taking advantage of the empty heated water bowl!

Alas, this is one of the more feral cats and it ran off very quickly. I had to zoom in and crop to get the image above, because I couldn’t get any closer without scaring it.

The isolation shelter was very warm in the food corner, where the heat bulb is facing.

You can also tell where the two pieces of insulation under the roof touch. Enough heat is escaping in between to cause the snow on the back of the roof to melt more!

I’m a little concerned about Kohl, though. She has one eye that’s leaking a bit. When I took a closer look, I could see some redness and swelling in the corner. She’s also snuffling a bit. Something to monitor.

Eye Baby, on the other had, is looking a bit better. His eyes and nose are still leaky, but his eyes were not stuck shut this morning, like they were yesterday. He was also quick to jump down and start eating the wet cat food I gave them. Kohl was more interested in human attention.

The fluffy male meanwhile, is looking clear eyed, hale and hearty! I couldn’t touch him, though. Kohl and Eye Baby kept getting in the way!

After doing the food and water for the outside cats, I got a decent amount of shoveling done around the house. In the process, I piled up more snow around three sides of the catio. The cats quite enjoy using it! The only issue is when the more feral cats are in there when I come closer to put food in the bowl in there. They start panicking and bouncing off the wire mesh of the walls a few times before going for the open door.

I got a path cleared to the garage, wide enough for a walker, and cleared in front of the garage so the doors where Spewie is stored could be opened. My daughter will use Spewie for the driveway later on.

I will most likely be heading out before then, though. Just a quick run to the post office. I checked online and discovered that a gift I’d ordered for my daughters arrived on Friday. The last time I looked, tracking said it would arrive on January 7, because of the postal strike. This was to be delivered with Purolator, but they are (90%?) owned by Canada Post, so they weren’t delivering either. With that delivered, it means regular mail might have been delivered, too. There has been a back to work order made (since Canada Post is a Crown Corporation, it’s federally controlled), but I think that kicks in this week.

Whatever the reason, I’m just happy the gift made it in, and hopefully, so will other important mail that should have arrived, weeks ago. We don’t get a lot of mail, as most stuff is now done electronically, but the mail we do get tends to be things like letters from clinics for my husband, or other similarly important stuff.

Since I’m heading to the post office, anyhow, I think I’ll stop by the old church again and see what is left inside, after yesterday’s closing service. I expect people took as many mementos as they could, and the only things left will be too damaged, but you never know.

Oh, I almost forgot to share one more adorable photo! As I was coming back inside after doing my rounds, I spotted these boys.

We’ve got Midnight, Gouda and I believe the tabby is the one the girls call The Toe Biter.

What a face I caught on Gouda!

They are all more friendly than feral. They have their moments. Some days, they eagerly come over for attention. Others, they act almost completely feral and won’t let us near them.

Gouda is the only one we’ve been able to get fixed, in this group.

Meanwhile…

Last night, I had a chance to talk to my brother on the phone. I told him about what happened with our neighbour, before the church service yesterday. We are both perplexed by some of the things he was saying. Clearly, our vandal has been telling him things, but any time I tried to ask for more information, he just kept ranting. After talking to me, my brother said he would call our mom, then let me know when he was done so I could call her and tell her about the service, since she couldn’t be there.

In almost no time at all, he called me back to say he was done; he had brought up about the church service, telling her that I was going to be calling her to tell her all about it. She kept asking him questions, but he wasn’t there and couldn’t answer, so he just told her I would be calling to tell her all about it. She kept asking, so he told her he would get off the phone so I could call her.

Which I did.

When she answered, my mother started telling me she was watching a show and “a problem like Maria” – which I promptly started singing, then told her it was from The Sound of Music. She was watching it, but didn’t know the name, even though she watches it when this channel plays it this time of year, every year, apparently.

I told her why I was calling, but in the end, she was more interested in her movie and said we’d talk about it later.

??? 😄😄

She did call me back today, while I was working on this post, so I got to tell her all about it. I told her I recorded the entire service for her, and just have to figure out how to get it so she can see it, since I couldn’t have such large video files taking up space on my phone. I did tell her about what happened with our neighbour, and she was perplexed by it, too. I told her what I had picked up for her, and about the Bible stand I took for myself. She was really happy that I had taken that stand. She remembers it well, too. There were a few other things we talked about as well. My mother used to regularly go to clean the church, even after it was no longer being used. Over the decades, she picked up things like shelves and other items for it. I’m sure the artificial flowers all over were from my mother, but I didn’t know she had bought several shelves, as well, including one that was in the tiny room the fire was started in.

I told her about the print that was donated by my “uncle”, how damaged it was, and who I thought had taken it. I told her I planned to go back, too, and she was happy to hear that. I also explained to her what was going to happen to various things, as much as anyone was able to confirm for me. She was particularly interested in the statue of Mary outside. It turns out, that was donated and installed by a (distant) relative of ours!

Then Meals on Wheels showed up with her lunch, so I let her go.

Things are still looking good outside. As I write this, the post office is closed for another hour, so I think I will head out and go to the church first and see how things are now, and take my time until the post office opens again. I don’t have to wait to pick up the one package I know about, since it was delivered to the store, not the post office, but we might have others.

Then I have to figure out how to get the gift for my daughters wrapped without them seeing it. For the space I need, I might have to use the basement! 😄

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

I’m glad I went

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Before I get into it, I wanted to share this photo I took, after doing the evening outside cat feeding.

Nice to see them using the insulated box nest. Poor Eye Baby is looking gross, but at least his eyes didn’t glue shut again! Earlier, when I was topping up their food, he actually came over for pets. It was really, really warm in there, too. But then, it was also warm enough outside that I didn’t bother wearing a jacket, even when I stopped to shovel some snow.

I’m certainly glad we had such a mild day. The de-consecration service for our little church had to be done outside, because there was no room for everyone, inside. Not that were were a lot of people. Maybe 20? 25? However, it’s not like anyone could have used the pews or anything.

I got there early, so that I could take photos of videos. The front doors no longer had a board across them, so after I went around the outside, I checked, and the doors were unlocked. I’m not sure they even can be locked anymore.

So I went inside, rather carefully. I didn’t know how much fire damage there was to the floors. With some of the windows boarded up, some areas were just too dark for the camera on my phone, and it doesn’t allow the “flashlight” to be on while taking video.

I was finishing up when I heard the first vehicles showing up.

It was our vandal and his wife, plus our mutual neighbour.

I went to talk to our neighbour while they were turning their car around the back. I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t leave because of me.

Well, I got a surprise from our neighbour. I’d sent him a message after seeing him briefly and let him know what my mother said about the soup drop off, because of the messages she heard our vandal leave on my brother’s voicemail. I didn’t tell him the contents of the messages; only that he’d said some pretty vile things about me and my daughter. It was just an FYI. Mostly, I was telling him I was happy to see him, even briefly.

When I asked to make sure they wouldn’t leave because of me, he just lit into me. Apparently, my message to him was “vile” (if he thought that was vile, the things our vandal said about me and my daughters would give him a heart attack!). He basically just verbally barfed all over me, and wouldn’t let me get a word in edge wise.

Very much like what our vandal does, in fact.

While he was doing that, our vandal and his wife went into the church, but they could hear what he was saying. He didn’t stop until other people started showing up.

I’m saddened that this happened. Clearly, he’s been dragged into the middle of something that he shouldn’t have any part in, but he was also basically repeating our vandal’s favourite victimhood lines – and he is only getting one side of the story. At one point, he was saying he’s seen all this evolve over the years I was living in other provinces and knows how all this started. I said, maybe we could get together and you can tell me, because we have no idea. I don’t think he heard me over himself.

Ah, well.

As more people arrived, I went into the church again. Everyone was looking around and taking pictures. There was a particular wall hanging I asked about, as it was no longer where it used to be, but no one knew where it went. Later, I heard someone call down from the choir loft to tell me it was up there. I hadn’t tried to go up there, as I didn’t know if the very steep, already dangerous stairs were safe. They’re more like climbing a ladder, with the rungs much wider apart.

I remember being up there with the “choir” as a child. The space is insanely tiny, yet somehow people got a pump organ up there. That antique went to someone else, long ago, so it was not there to be damaged by the fire. The church bell used to be in the ceiling up there, too, until people realized it was barely supported. A simple steel frame bell tower was made for it outside, and it’s still there.

When the priest arrived and it was time to start, he suggested we gather around outside, due to the lack of space. I was able to get video of the entire service for my mother, without being obtrusive. The priest shared some interesting historical information about how churches get consecrated, and traditions surrounding the process.

Now that I think about it, I really shouldn’t call this a de-consecration service. It was a sort of closing service. At the end of it, he explained what will happen next.

Everything in the church that can be burned, will be burned, as that is the proper and respectful way to disposed of things that are consecrated. The things that cannot be burned will be buried in the church cemetery, which is maybe half a mile away. A model of the church will be built and set up there, too.

The bell and its tower will also be moved to the cemetery. There is a statue of Mary outside as well. This was installed at a time when it was very popular to mount statues, crosses, etc. on large concrete bases that were decorated by pressing stones into the concrete, sometimes in shapes or words. This one also has a wider base forming a couple of steps, with larger stones embedded into the sides. I asked about it, and was told it was not yet decided what would happen to it. The statue itself is damaged, with missing hands. If it can be repaired and restored, it will also be moved to the cemetery. If not, it will be buried, because it, too, was consecrated.

After the service, everyone gathered for a group photo. Then the bell was rung a few times, including by the priest. Then we all went back into the church and looked around some more. We were allowed to collect mementos, if we wanted. For my mother, I took one of the Stations of the Cross plaques from the wall next to what was our family pew, and one of the votive candle holders from the stand where people could light a candle and say a prayer.

When I was an altar server here as a child, we would get ready and put on our cassocks in a tiny room near the back door of the church. Then, just before service started, we could go across, behind the altar, to join the priest in the tiny room he got prepared in, before coming out in procession. The fire was started by the back door, and that room was the most badly damaged. Completely gutted and destroyed. In the priest’s preparation room, there was some fire damage near the open doorway, but mostly it was smoke damage.

I was looking around in there with someone when I spotted something else from my childhood. Basically, a metal box with legs, and a top that could be raised to different angles, to rest a Bible on while being read from during services. It was a fancy one used for special occasions. (There was a plain wooden one for regular use.) It was still at its lowest setting, with a crochet doily on top. The doily was badly smoke damaged, and when I took it off, it’s pattern was left on the metal surface, where it protected it from smoke.

Smoke damage was pretty much it, for the stand. I ended up taking it as my own memento.

I also took the chance and went up into the choir loft. I saw the framed piece I’d been asking about, and it was quite badly damaged. I didn’t dare go too much further in, and it had been tucked behind the single pew up there.

Someone did take it down, though, and as I was getting ready to leave, I saw it in the entry. My cousin and her husband were there and we talked about it. I told them about how it was a donation from an uncle (not really an uncle, but a relative of my dad’s). They encouraged me to take it, but I told them I knew I wouldn’t be in a position to restore it, so I would rather it went to someone who could.

I think they ended up taking it!

Someone else took a framed print of the Last Supper my mother donated – her name was even on the back of it!

If I stayed too much longer, though, I knew I would have started loading up the truck. There were so many memories in there! Perhaps I’ll go back soon, after everyone else has taken what they want, and see what is left. I don’t think the actual dismantling and burning of the building and items will happen until spring, at the earliest. As I was leaving, though, I did see someone backing their truck up to the front doors. I think they were planning to take some pews.

As for the plot the building is on, there is talk of selling it. It would be a shame, but we just don’t have the population to support a church anymore.

With all of this going on, I even managed to ask some questions of our vandal, as he seems to be pretty involved with the stuff, and he even answered me, if briefly.

We shall see what comes of it.

Meanwhile, I will probably put together a movie and upload it, so that I can show it all to my mother. I had to take the videos off my phone, because they take up too much memory, and my phone doesn’t have the ability to add a micro SD, like my old one did.

I will also clean the items I got for her. She doesn’t have a lot of space, so I only got the two small items. The glass votive holder will be easy enough to clean, but the Station of the Cross plaque is a combination of ceramic on wood, and will need more care. As for the metal book stand, I’m going to have to do some more research on how to clean that. It has some pretty intricate designs on the sides in the metal, plus fake gems embedded in places. It’s going to need some very careful and meticulous cleaning.

I won’t be sharing any images or video here, though. Unfortunately, I still need to keep this blog anonymous, and these things are just too publicly recognizable.

Ah, well.

So while there were a few uncomfortable moments, I’m glad I went. This church was a big part of our community for a long time, and is full of history and personal memories. Such a shame, to lose it like this. But, as the priest said, the church is not really a building. We are the church. And we live on.

The Re-Farmer

It’s say they’re a hit!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’ve been keeping an eye on the sun room, since switch to the hotter heat bulbs. This morning, I made sure to change the angle on the critter cam, because the light was blowing out the image like a glowing sun! 😄

They are definitely making use of the warmth! Every time I look out the bathroom window, I can see groups hanging out under the bulb. The last time I checked the critter cam, I could see three of them bunched together, with two of them grooming the one in the middle.

It’s definitely made a difference in the isolation shelter, too. Reaching in to take care of their food bowl, next to the window, I could feel warmth. The kittens have been hanging out on the lounging shelf in front of the lamp, enjoying the warmth.

As soon as I opened the sliding window, Kohl was right at me, wanting attention. The fluffy male just went off to the side and watched. Eye Baby stayed on the shelf and I could see his eyes were stuck shut. I made sure to leave some food beside him, including wet cat food, before messaging my daughters about it, then continuing my rounds. The girls came out and cleaned his face, but had a hard time getting him, because Kohl kept getting in the way, demanding attention!

Today is going to be a much warmer day, though the snow that was supposed to start tomorrow is now expect to hit us this evening. I’m glad it’s holding off, since I’ll be heading out soon. The tiny church in our tiny hamlet that I was baptized in is being deconsecrated today. Both churches in our hamlet have been closed for years. Someone broke into this one, stole some stuff and started a fire. The damage was bad enough that it’s not worth fixing, and it will be torn down. A piece of history, destroyed. 😢 There are some things in there that were donated by family members. I’d like to know if they were damaged, too, or what will happen to them if they weren’t.

Time to go!

The Re-Farmer

An expensive outing

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, my daughter and I did manage to get out and run multiple errands today.

Way too expensive ones.

Last night, however, I got a message from my brother, letting me know he was planning to come out. He had some stuff he needed to do with the vehicles he’s got parked out here now, including the tractors. Unfortunately, he was expecting to be here at a time when we would probably still be out and about. I let him know that, and that we would likely miss him entirely. He doesn’t need me to be there, but I do enjoy his company, and would help him, if I could be of any use to him. Ah, well.

Before we headed out, of course, the morning rounds were done. The wind was from the south and bitterly cold, so I didn’t quite get the full rounds done. According the the weather app, we were at -7C/19F at the time, with a windchill of -14C/7F. I don’t know which weather station had that reading, but it felt WAY colder than that in the wind. It was blowing in from the south, too, we were getting the full brunt of it.

With the cold temperatures, the outside cats’ kibble in the sunroom has been disappearing fast, as well as in the shelf shelter bowls, but the kibble house and under the water bowl shelter trays have been building up. It’s just been too cold for the cats to eat it, even as sheltered as they are. They’ll get to it when things warm up, but for now, they’re avoiding those trays as much as they can. The catio food bowl gets emptied, though!

The outside heated water bowl was completely dry, and the sun room water bowl had just layers of ice shards left. The cats were really appreciating having warm water to drink!

I actually am using hot water from the tap these days – with the new powered anode rod in our hot water tank, there is no longer a smell, so we aren’t shocking the tank with hydrogen peroxide anymore. That means we no longer need to get the kettle going every time.

I was concerned about the isolation kitties. Especially Eye Baby. His eyes and nose are leaking so much, and he’s still such a small kitty. It’s cold enough in there, even with the heat lamp set to face the back of the shelter and the overall temperatures increasing, that the wet cat food we’re giving them is mostly frozen. It’s right next to a sliding window, so that corner is colder. The kittens, however, have been hanging out on their lounging shelf directly in front of where the heat lamp is now facing, so they are obviously noticing a difference and taking advantage of it. They simply need more heat than what the 150 watt ceramic bulbs are capable of.

With that in mind, our first stop on the way out was the feed store. I got a couple of 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats – they had a different brand that I tried this time – and I found their heat bulbs. They didn’t have the ceramic ones, but that didn’t surprise me. Those are usually sold for terrariums. They had 250 watt incandescent bulbs in red or white. The white was slightly cheaper, so I got those. They came in a two pack, too.

They did not have any heated water bowls. When I asked, the guy said there had been one this morning, but it was no longer on the shelf. Someone beat us to it!

I did order another 4 pounds of lysine.

Once done there, we stopped at a gas station to top up the tank and get some energy drinks for the road – neither of us got much sleep last night! As I was about to go inside after filling the tank, though, I spotted a bird, on the pavement near the sidewalk along the building. Just sitting there. Frozen! I ended up getting a paper towel and put it in the garbage can. Poor thing. It may have been frozen solid, but I still didn’t want a car driving over it.

After the gas station, it was off to the nearer city.

Our first stop was the Walmart area. My daughter had her own shopping list, so she went in ahead while I hit a Staples in the same parking lot, first. My daughter has been updating her resume and wants to print it out, but my printer is out of ink in two colours – almost all from the automatic head cleaning. I’d last bought the XL size of cartridges, because that was what I could afford at the time, and those have very little ink in them. When a colour runs out, the printer won’t even print in black only, which is so frustrating.

Oh, I just remembered… the printer has been printing as if a portrait oriented file is being printed in landscape form. It didn’t do that when we first installed the printer on my new computer, but suddenly switched, and we have not been able to figure out how to fix it. All the settings are telling it to print as normal. If that’s still happening, we still won’t be able to print her resume! It would be practically unreadable.

Well, I’ll be doing test prints and cleaning the heads after the ink is installed, so we’ll see.

As for the ink, I was able to get the XXL size, with double the ink in the cartridges, as a 3 pack. I couldn’t have gotten the XL size even if I wanted to, as they only had those as individual packages – but no individual package of the XXL size!

One package of ink cost over $124, after taxes and enviro fees.

*choke*

The individual XL size cartridges, with half the ink, were almost $30 each. Add in the enviro fees and taxes, they wouldn’t have been much cheaper.

Ouch.

After leaving the ink in the truck, I met up with my daughter and we started out with breakfast (even though it was almost noon by then) at McRaunchies. Then we went our separate ways with our shopping lists. I had just a few things on my list, but I did get a few extras. One of the things I almost forgot to get was a new 12′ extension cord – an outdoor one – to replace the old one that the sun room heated water bowl was plugged into. That cord has been there since long before we moved here, and is just a household cord. After finding the melted spot on the bottom of the heated water bowl, I figure it was time for an upgrade, with something that can handle how cold it can sometimes get in there.

My daughter wasn’t able to find most of what was on her and her sister’s shopping list. My list had more kibble for the inside cats, bread and eggs, but I got more canned soup that was on sale, some items my husband requested, and a few odds and ends. I even found some affordable breakaway collars to replace the lost ones on the outside neutered cats, and a couple of inexpensive cat toys for the isolation kitties. I actually got quite a bit for the $160+ I spent there.

No heated water bowl, though.

So after paying for our stuff, we tried the Canadian Tire across the street.

They didn’t have any, either.

Well, I still plan to hit the feed store in the town north of us, as it has more retail stuff. I know they have heated bowls. I just don’t know if they have the smaller size I’m looking for, since the big ones seem to die a lot more quickly. I will be rescheduling to pick up our beef share in that town, next week, so I can check them out, then.

Since my daughter didn’t find everything on her list, we then went to a regular grocery store. Enough time had passed by this time that I was starting to get hungry again, so while my daughter went hunting for stuff on her list, I got some food we could eat in the truck – and a fruit cake as a treat for my husband. Just a little one. The size I used to get for him, which isn’t very big, either, has increased in price by almost 50%. Even the smaller one I got was more expensive than what the larger one used to cost. It’s a good thing my husband is the only one that likes fruit cake!

When my daughter was done her shopping, we had one more stop to make: a nearby liquor store. The girls want to make boozy eggnog, and we’ve got everything but the booze to make it!

With all the errands done, we started heading home. My daughter updated her sister was we got closer. We were maybe 20 minutes away when I asked if my brother was still there, and we were told he was snow blowing! I thought he might do that. There was a lot of stuff in the way of his snow blowers, though, so I wasn’t sure. I know my brother well enough that he would take advantage of the trip to do as many things as he could, before he had to leave.

When we got to the gate, he was still at it, though I could see he was having issues with the snow blower.

My daughter opened the gate for me and I drove the truck up to the house for unloading. With both sun room doors tied closed, I had to go through the house to open them, so we could unload the outside cat kibble straight to the sun room. I also made sure to turn off both heat lamps, to let the ceramic bulbs cool down so I could switch them with the new bulbs.

It took them a while to cool down!

Everything was unloaded, the outside cats were fed and I parked the truck, and they were still too hot to remove. I didn’t want the isolation kitties without heat, though, so I found some thick work gloves and used those to remove the ceramic bulbs.

Here is the before and after, for the isolation shelter.

So they will now be lit up, as well as warmer!

Poor Eye Baby. He is not looking well at all. Kohl has been trying to get through the window while I pet her, not so much to escape as to get warm cuddles! Which I couldn’t do, since that would be taking her out of the shelter and into the wind.

The fluffy boy wouldn’t let me touch him. Eye baby just sat on the shelf, ignoring me.

Once that was done, I went out to see my brother. He had already put the snow blower away and was about to leave! He said he made a bit of a mess, though I didn’t see it as such. He told me the snow blower has transmission issues and it keeps stopping. There’s a trick to getting it moving again. Not something I’m going to touch! Perhaps we’ll eventually be using his snow blowers, too, but not until after he’s had a chance to show me how to run them, before or after he’s done the fixes they need. So far, little Spewie is enough to do the job we need.

My brother cleared a vehicle wide path to the barn, plus did a few passes in the inner yard, before I blocked the way with the truck to unload it. He also widened the driveway a bit, and even fiddled with the gate, as the two sides were no longer straight. When the ground shifts in the winter, the posts on either side move. When he redid how the gate was hinged to the posts after our vandal damaged the original hinges, he did it in such a way that they can be micro adjusted. He even used a level to make sure the two sides were exactly straight!

That was so sweet of him!

It’ll probably shift back again in the summer, though. 😁 No matter! If it does, they can be adjusted again.

I basically had time for him to update me on the stuff he did, and give him a hug, before he was gone. He needed to hurry if he was going to get home before we lost our light.

After closing up the gate behind him, I came back to the house and could see the isolation kitties by the light of the new heat lamps. I definitely got the impression they are feeling the difference!

I then remembered to give them their new toys. I imagine it would get pretty boring in there for such young kittens. At least when they’re warm enough to play, instead of huddling together for warmth!

I went through the sun room to tie off the doors again, and found several cats under the new heat bulb in there, too! I tried to make sure there were some smaller kibble bowls under the heat lamp. There were three cats around one small bowl under the lamp, instead of at the big tray of food, nearby! 😁

In retrospect, I do regret not getting 250 watt bulbs, right from the start.

Ah, well. Live and learn.

All in all, it turned out to be a productive, if more expensive than planned, day.

It was stuff we needed, though, so it is what it is. 🫤

As I close this off, I checked the weather again. We’re at -7C/19F again, but this time, the wind chill is listed as -22C/-8F. THAT is more like how it felt, this morning!

We’ve got a couple of days with expected highs of -2C/28F coming up before things start getting chilly again. The day after tomorrow, we’re supposed to get more snow. We shall see how that works out in our area. Long range forecast now says the above freezing temperatures will start after Christmas, instead of before Christmas, though Christmas day itself is supposed to be just below freezing. We’ll see how it turns out.

This year, we’ll be having a very quite Christmas and New Year. None of us have the spoons for much activity, this year.

It’s been an oddly difficult year.

Ah, well. It is what it is. We work with what we are given!

As my late father would days, “what else can you do?”

The Re-Farmer

Getting better out there!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Well, almost.

It’s almost 1pm as I start this. Outside, we’re at -17C/1F, which is a huge improvement from the last couple of days. Our predicted high for today is -15C/5F

The wind chill right now, however, is -30C/-22F

Tomorrow, however, we’re expected to reach a high of -6C/21F, then -2C/28F over the next couple of days! It’s going to feel downright tropical out there! 😄

My daughter did the outside rounds this morning. The short rounds, since it was -27C/-17F out there, before wind chill, at the time. When I did the evening cat feeding last night, I saw that the wet cat food in the isolation shelter bowl was frozen. It’s right next to the sliding window, so that corner is pretty cold. I reached in to tilt the clamp lamp so the heat bulb faced the back of the shelter, instead of the hammock below.

I was actually able to handle the metal shield around the heat bulb with my bare hands. It was just warm. Normally, I would have burned my fingers if I’d touched it. Another sign of how cold the ambient temperature in there got, even with the heat bulb!

The kitties are okay, though. Kohl had frost on her face fur again, but her fluffy partner did not. My daughter says there was a bit of frost around the top of the heated water bowl.

The kitties have now been in there for a full week. Kohl is handling her surgery just fine. No sign of infection, and neither of them seem interested in licking their surgical sites at all. They’ll be in there for one more week of observation.

They have company, though.

After talking about it with my daughter last night, we decided to add another kitten. There’s one white and grey that has leaky eyes, a stuffy nose, and has been sneezing and snuffling a lot. My daughter thinks it’s Eye Baby, but I’ll have to look closer to be sure. This morning, she was able to snag the kitten and take him into the isolation shelter. She said, he really didn’t like being carried outside in the wind, so he was very quick to jump into the isolation shelter all on his own!

With the temperatures improving over the next week, he will be better off in there than in the sun room, and will get to share the wet cat food as well. A week not having to fight so many adult cats for food, water and warmth will help him recover faster, as well.

At least, that’s the hope.

Today is a bright and sunny day, so they should have some passive solar heat in there, too.

My daughter doesn’t stop to take any pictures when she does the morning routine, though, so I’ll give you this, instead…

Here’s Toni, enjoying the indoor life!

I wish I could give all of them the indoor life!

It may be warming up out there, but today will be another home day. I think, tomorrow, I’ll make the trip to a feed store. I’m looking to get the 40 pound bags of cat food, but also want to see what they have for heated water bowls. I’d like to get another smaller one. They seem to last longer. When I took the one my SIL gave us outside to chop the ice out, and flipped it upside down to spill out the shards, I found there was a melted spot in the plastic in the middle of the bowl’s bottom! I had intended to go to the town north of us for that, but we are almost out of lysine, and the feed store in the town my mother lives in was able to order some for us. Since I’m also thinking of another smaller shopping trip in preparation for Christmas and New Years, in the nearer city, it would be along the way.

Until then, I’ve got another day to enjoy my hibernation.

The Re-Farmer

Power is back… for now?

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Okay, let’s see how long this will last!

The power is back on again, and stayed on long enough that I turned my computer back on and will try posting this.

We’ve got another brutally cold morning. While doing the morning routine, after feeding the cats, I took the litter buckets out to their compost pile behind the outhouse. They had been in the old kitchen, which is not heated. I couldn’t empty them completely, because of the damp sawdust frozen to the sides of the buckets! Normally, I’d knock the buckets against a tree, but I didn’t want to shatter the plastic.

By the time I got back inside, it had warmed up to -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29F. I just checked again now, and I have three different weather apps telling me three different temperatures! I’ve got one saying it’s -24C/-11F, another saying we’re still at -25C/-13F, and another saying we are at -26C/-15F. Only two of them give me wind chills, with one saying -30C/-22F, and another saying -33C/-27F

I was supposed to pick up our beef share today, but I had already tried to reschedule last night, on seeing the temperatures expected for today. We haven’t replaced the cord on our block heater yet, so I don’t want to try driving the truck. It’s not cold enough to crack the engine block (yes, we’ve had that happen before), but I still would rather not take any chances.

With there being power issues today as well, that’s even more reason to stay home.

In the second photo of the above slide show, you can see the ice and frost accumulated on the inner door of our main entry. There’s frost on the bottom, too.

The next photo shows Caramel in the bigger cat bed inside the shelf shelter, with frost on her face. She could go into the sun room (the thermometer on the wall was reading -15C/5F), or the heated cat house, but she chose the shelf shelter.

In the next photo, you can see that even Kohl has frost on her face! The other fluffball didn’t have any frost on him at all. The insides of the windows were frosted, though. Even the heated water bowl was starting to show ice freezing near the top. After giving them their wet cat food, I scooped out most of their water bowl (the power cord is wrapped around the support on the top, so I can’t take it very far out of the shelter to spill it out) and replace it with warm water.

I noticed a corner of the plastic wrapped around the bottom was coming loose. When I checked it, I found that cats had pulled the plastic down, all along the back of the isolation shelter. So I got a cardboard box and opened one corner, to make one long, flat piece. Three sections were just long enough to cover the entire back, with one section was enough to cover the side of the shelter. I quickly tacked the cardboard in place, but after taking the picture, which is the last one in the slide show, I secured it a bit better and bent the flap, so it wasn’t overlapping the sliding door.

The water bowl in the sun room was frozen solid. It was also completely full. Normally, it just top it off with the warm water, which melts through the layer of ice to reach liquid water below, but that was not going to happen. I ended up taking it outside and chopped the ice out with a hatchet, being careful not to hit the bowl itself. The heated water bowl in the water shelter is still working fine, so they at least had that.

There was still quite a lot of kibble in the outside food trays. No surprise there, really. They would have had to be incredibly hungry to go out there in last night’s cold for food! I know for sure we hit -29C/-20C before I’d gone to bed last night.

With the power going out, we needed to keep tabs on how long it was out. With the heat lamp in the isolation shelter off, it would get dangerously cold in a very short time, and it would be hard for two small cats to keep each other warm, even with the cat bed in the most insulated corner. The cardboard would have helped some, but not enough. We would have had to take them out to join the other cats in their cuddle puddles to stay warm, as there is no way we can bring them inside the house.

Thankfully, the power seems to be staying on, now.

It did get me thinking of alternatives.

If we really needed to, we could use the fire bricks we’ve bee slowly accumulating for our future outdoor kitchen to create a radiant heater in the isolation shelter. A brick or two on the second level floor, more bricks to form a wall around, tea lights inside, and bricks on top to make sure no kitty could touch the flames. The bricks themselves would absorb heat and continue to radiate heat out, even after the candles burned out. For a small space like that, it could work.

We have the ability to do things like cook if the power goes out, but that’s all outside. With temperatures like today, it just wouldn’t be feasible.

Another reason to put a priority on building the outdoor kitchen. Even if we just had the structure up, it would give us a sheltered space for a fire pit to cook over. I’d love to find a way to have it closer to the house, but there just isn’t a good space in the inner yard for that. Too many trees and other structures. As it is, we’ve changed our minds on the outer yard location a few times before settling on the space between the pump shack and the old chicken coop.

Things to think about!

In other things…

I was so happy to get that call from the new pain clinic. They have just opened recently, and my husband’s new doctor had referred him to it already. They needed to send him a questionnaire, which they normally would have mailed, but the postal strike is still going. So they wanted an email address to send it to, instead.

This is why having a corded phone on a land line is still important. We don’t get enough signal to get phone calls on our cell phones – I’m amazed I was able to make my earlier post, with how poor our signal was at the time. Far less signal strength is needed to send things in text, thankfully. At least there was a signal. Usually, there’s nothing.

Hmmm… I’m going to try something here. My current computer with the current OS has features my old one didn’t. One of those is the ability to do a video screen capture. Check this out…

This is the animated weather on my desktop app. From the colours, you can see that large swaths of Canada and the US are as cold as, or almost as cold as, the Greenland glaciers!

Thankfully, days like this will apparently be few and far between, this winter. We’ll have some cold days in the week before Christmas, but the long range forecast is now saying to expect 3C/37F on Christmas Eve, 1C/34F on Christmas Day, and 5C/41F on Boxing Day! Then stay with highs above freezing, through to New Year’s Eve!

Of course, I expect those forecasts to change, but so far, we’re not going to be getting weather like today very often. Quite the change from our first couple of winters here, when we saw entire months much like what we’re getting right now.

Funny. As I get older, I’m finding I can handle the cold a lot better than I used to, physically – but mentally, it’s the other way around!

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

Little champs! Plus, YouTube issues

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Today was a good day to just hunker down and stay out of the cold as much as possible. As I write this, at almost 3:30pm, which is usually the warmest time of the day, we are at -25C/-13F and the wind chill is at -35C/-31F, though we did hit wind chills of -39C/-38F earlier on.

Once I had my glasses on and could see properly, I did find the sun room thermometer really is working. The temperatures in there had dropped to about -10C/14F, though by the time I headed out to do the evening feeding, it was just below freezing. The cats were taking full advantage of the bright sunshine and sitting on the shelves at the south facing windows.

Or on the shelf near the bathroom window. That spot is pretty popular!

Of course, the cat beds on the platform had their cuddle puddles, too!

In the first photo of the slideshow above, we have the isolation babies. It is downright WARM in there! So much so, that I would say that confirms my hopes of getting passive solar heat from the windows is actually working. After putting the wet cat food into their bowl, I opened the window wider so I could reach in and pet the fluffy boy – which he let me do – and they have zero interest in going out!

In the next photo, there’s a couple of kittens at the window shelf. The canopy we got on clearance this year is currently stored there, and it heavy enough they can’t knock it down. Instead, they like to perch on it. The little black and white kitten is not socialized and was getting nervous with me untying the doors to I could get food to the outside bowls, so I dropped a bit of kibble for him, and he stayed!

The last photo is of one of the fluffy babies, on that shelf near the bathroom window, watching me. 😄There’s two fluffy tabby kittens that are mostly grey and I know one is female, but I’m not sure if this one is it. I have no idea what the second one is. Too fluffy.

Considering the temperatures we’ve got right now, I am very pleased with how that isolation shelter is working out. The other cats have their various shelters as well, so if things get cold, they can find the best spots, and just pile together to keep each other warm. Cats that normally don’t get along are now being seen using each other as pillows in their cuddle puddles. The isolation shelter is small and there’s just two kittens – I suppose they’re more catten then kitten at this point – in there, so not a lot of shared body heat, and they can’t go anywhere to find a better spot. Turns out, the isolation shelter IS the better spot, and that makes me happy. It will be good when their 2 weeks are up and we can open the ramp door, put the box entry back, and the other cats can start using it again, too.

The only down side is, that freshly washed cat bed I returned to the bottom level was immediately being used as a litter box again.

*sigh*

On a completely different topic…

Please let me know if you are finding this, too…

We all tend to use YouTube quite a bit. For me, one of the things I like to do is use the YouTube app on my phone to play videos to help me sleep. Usually, just certain styles of music (the music I would normally listen to would keep me awake) or, if I’m having a really hard time sleeping, something with a soothing voice speaking.

Well, last night, I started up one of my playlists and immediately got hit with a very loud ad. I haven’t had ads on my personal YouTube account in years! (oddly, if I log in as Re-Farmer, I always get ads, but if I switch to my personal account, no ads, even though I’m using the same app or browser). It was so bad, I gave up and just stopped trying.

Then I tried to watch videos on my desktop computer this morning, and the ads were there, too. I’ve been using the Opera browser and yes, the ad blocker was on. The ads were absolutely aggressive. There would be 2 or 3 short ads before a video would start, then more interrupting the video, with no “skip” option. When I started to get ads that where three and a half minutes long …

THREE AND A HALF MINUTES LONG!!! with no “skip” option!

… I gave up. Most of the videos I watch aren’t even that long.

I asked my family, and none of them are having this problem. My older daughter told me that every now and then, Google managed to get through the ad blockers, and it takes a while for the blockers to adjust.

The problem is, Google owns YouTube. And Chrome, And Opera. And most of the “independent” browsers. The only one she’s found that isn’t part of the Google monopoly is Firefox with their Ublock extension.

Guess what I’m using right now?

The problem for me is, I have been using Opera because it has sidebar features on it that I use frequently. Specifically the Instagram extension, since I use Instagram for my images and embed them into my posts here, now that I’ve almost run out of storage space on my WP account.

So I can watch videos now without the ads, but I hate switching browsers. There are just too many things that need to be switched over and logged into, settings adjusted and so on. That’s a pain on its own, but to do all that, just so I can watch videos without ads? Is it worth it?

Anyhow.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? I find it strange that I’m the only one in the household it’s happening to. If it were just my phone app or just my desktop, that would kinda make sense, but it’s both, and only with me.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind the ads, since that is how content creators get paid. I don’t mind sponsored ads done by the creators themselves; at least with those, if I don’t want to watch them, I can skip through. These ads I’m seeing now are just badly made, annoying and loud – and there is no excuse for an ad being THREE AND A HALF MINUTES LONG! Insane!

*grumblegrumble*

All it does it make me stop trying to watch the videos completely.

Well, we’ll see how long it goes on for. It’s likely the next time my Opera browser is updated, the ad blocker will be working again.

Until then, my YouTube watching, at least, will be limited to my Firefox browser.

Ah, well. Small problems. I was just wondering if anyone else was having this happen to them.

As for me, it’s time to check on some winter squash I’ve got roasting in the oven.

This is the sort of weather that calls for comfort food!

The Re-Farmer

Brrr!!!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Just checking the temperatures before heading to bed.

The first screencap image is Celsius, the second in Fahrenheit.   Instagram wouldn’t let me show the whole image, even though that’s what I set it for.  Underneath, it gave the expected overnight windchill of -36C/-32F

I keep telling myself, the isolation babies are okay.  They like to curl up together on the cat bed in the upper level.  It is under the lounging shelf, so there is a low ceiling, the back wall is insulated, the side wall in that corner is insulated, and the box nest next to the cat bed forms another insulated wall.  In front of the cat bed is the heated water bowl.  All this, plus the insulation forming a ceiling, plus the heat lamp.  They should be just fine.

But still, I worry!

The Re-Farmer