Critters

Skipped it!

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Today, I did NOT go to the city for our Costco stock up trip. I just wasn’t up to it.

This morning was bitterly cold, so I made sure to run the truck and do a scan to make sure it’s still just that sensor turning on the check engine light.

My first stop of the day was my mother’s place to find some clothes to bring to her at the hospital. I’m happy to say, the road conditions were very good, at least!

When I went into my mother’s apartment, the first thing I noticed was the smell of urine. Not overpowering, but very noticeable. So one of the first things I did was check her commode. Sure enough, it had not been emptied. So I took care of that.

After cleaning that up, I went into her kitchen, where I found there had been some food left out. It was covered, and was probably intended to be her supper after the appointment she never came home from. So I had to throw a few things away, then did her dishes. Her fridge was mostly empty – she was definitely ready for a grocery shopping trip, but never told me! – so there wasn’t much to take care of, there. I even remembered to water her single plant. 😁

Then I went looking for her “hospital bag”. She has been using a soft sided, insulated grocery bag for this, probably because it had a zipper closure. Way too small, but at least it would have had some of the stuff she intended to bring, if she found herself going to the ER from home again.

I didn’t find it. I think I found the bag, folded up and put away with other reusable grocery bags, but not what she’d had prepared.

I ended up going to my truck to get a hard sided grocery bag to use, instead. Anything I used had to be very light, which is why she wouldn’t use the very nice (and probably quite expensive) little suitcase my brother got for her to pack for any hospital stays.

As I was trying to figure out where my mother kept her things, I started to hear this very strange noise. A quiet, musical noise.

Coming out of my pocket.

My cell phone was ringing. I almost never use my cell phone as a phone, and even rarely get calls to me on it, so I had no idea what I was hearing! 😂

The call turned out to be from my sister, so I rejected the call, then sent a quick apology text telling her I was in the middle of getting clothes for our mother. When I had a moment, I saw she had left a voicemail message, which I can listen to through my text app, so I did.

She was asking me if I was planning on getting closed for our mother! Too funny.

I had to go through a number of shelves and drawers, as well as her closet, to gather what I thought she would need. Then I found a bag for her toiletries. I considered bringing her bubble packs, but she was almost done – she would have been getting her new bubble packs delivered today, if she were home – so I left them for now.

Eventually, I gathered several changes of clothing and sleepwear (I found her undies stored in a small garbage can! ???) and packed them up. Before heading to town, I paused to get a bit of gas – the prices were $1.479, while in the smaller city yesterday, it was $1.439 – and some food I could eat while driving, then headed to the town my mother is in.

By this time, I’d already decided I wasn’t up to going to the city after visiting my mother. We’re stocked up well enough right now that it isn’t urgent, and I didn’t want to rush my visit with her.

They had told me what room she was in, and that’s where I headed first, only to have someone tell me there was no one in that room. On getting my mother’s name, she looked her up and told me they’d moved her to the opposite end of the hall! The hospital only as 20 or so rooms, all down one hall, so I would have found her eventually, I suppose.

My mother didn’t look very good when I walked in, though. She was sitting on the side of her bed, leaning on the table and holding a cloth over her eyes. She was looking very tired!

She cheered right up when she saw me, though – and even more when I told her I brought clothing for her! I found out that they had only just moved her to this room, too. The room she was in before was a shared room, so after they did another EKG on her today, they moved her to a private room.

That was nice of them!

I’d barely settled into a chair to visit with her when there was a knock at the door, and my sister walked in! She hadn’t seen my message yet, but said she figured I was probably driving to do exactly what she was asking me about. It was my cousin that had phoned my sister, asking about bringing clothes for my mother.

I’m actually a bit upset with my sister, so be honest, but we weren’t going to talk about it in front on my mother. My sister told our vandal that Mom was in the hospital, and he had come to visit Mom pretty much right away. His wife was with him, at least. I found out about the visit through my brother, who was able to visit that same evening. My mother told my brother that our vandal had started talking smack my brother, until Mom started crossing herself repeatedly, and he stopped. I honestly didn’t think our vandal would be up to visiting, since he supposedly just had major, life threatening cancer surgery, but for someone who is supposedly dying of cancer, he’s pretty darn active. He did, however, tell my cousin about Mom being in the hospital, and she’s visited several times already. The hospital is right next to the church we went to when I was a kid, and my cousin is very involved with it, so it’s a simple matter for her to pop over. She even let the priest know, and he came to give my mother communion, which she really appreciated. Unfortunately, my cousin has also been sucked in by our vandal’s claims and has caused other problems as well, so this is not really a good thing, even though my mother enjoys the visits.

My sister and I had a good long visit with my mother. Honestly, I would have probably left earlier, but after what my sister did re: our vandal, I didn’t want to leave them alone together. What a terrible way to have to think! She seems utterly oblivious, though, and even mentioned how happy our vandal was that she told him Mom was in the hospital. Yes, she was like a mother to him, too, but she knows what he’s been doing over the past few years!

Well, it is what it is, and we just have to deal with things as they come.

Meanwhile, we were at least able to help my mother change to a fresh clean shirt. She complained about the lack of a scarf, as she finds it helps her throat, so I went to the truck to see if I had one in our winter clothing bin. I didn’t, but I did have a shawl I’d crocheted that she could drape over her shoulders and around her neck, if she wanted. While I was doing that, I had a chance to talk to her nurse and let them know that my mother was having difficulty changing her clothes – something she mentioned to my brother – but is too proud to bring up with the nursing staff. She “doesn’t want to bother them”.

She had several visits with nursing staff while we were there, and found out a few things being changed with her treatment, so it was a good thing I didn’t bring her bubble packs. The hospital is giving her her medication from their own supply for now, and the doctor is trying her on some new medications, as the old ones don’t seem to be working anymore.

Eventually, though, I could see my mother was getting very tired, so I suggested it was time for us to leave and let her rest. I walked my sister out, but she parked in a very different area, so after we parted ways, I went back to the entrance closer to where I parked.

Which gave me a chance to stop at the nursing station and let them know about our vandal, if he visits again. As long as his wife is with him, he should be okay, but they know that he is never to be with her, unsupervised. She took notes so the other staff would be aware.

Then I remembered something my brother asked me to tell my mother, and went back to see her. Basically, to let her know that if anyone tries to get her to sign something, to tell them to talk to my brother, or to me, first. She’s had people try to coerce her into signing things before – including both our vandal and my cousin – so I made sure to add that if *anyone* tried to get her to sign something, tell them to call my brother or me, first.

Gosh, I hate having to think like this. My mother, however, greatly appreciated the reminder.

By this time, it was getting to be late in the afternoon. Since I didn’t go to the city, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a couple of things, then headed home.

It was late enough that, once things were unloaded and put away (no need to drive up to the house to unload, this time!), I gave the outside cats their evening feed and warm water.

Fluffy and The Grink were cuddled together on the cat bed in front of the heat lamp, which was nice to see. I also spotted a pink collar on a black cat among the crowd in the sun room, so Midnight has returned. I had to be sneaky about it, but managed to get a quick peak at his nethers. Just enough to confirm no sign of infection.

I had been keeping my brother up to date, to a certain extent. He and my SIL were driving out to visit my mother this evening, so he called while they were driving, so I could update them both on speakerphone.

After all the updated, I had one unrelated thing to bring up with my brother.

A recent, strange thudding sound I’ve been hearing that seems to be coming from the furnace.

It’s almost random. The only pattern I can see is that it starts happening after the furnace has been on for a while, though when the furnace turns off, I usually hear one last thump. Stranger still is that I’ve heard the thumping even when the furnace has not been on for some time. Yet it still seems to be coming from the furnace.

We have two furnaces. There’s the wood burning furnace, that can no longer be used. My brother had to seal the door with metal strapping and send the insurance company pictures as proof, otherwise, they would not have insured the house. When the new roof was installed, the old chimney for the wood furnace was removed at the top, and the opening sealed.

The other furnace is electric, and attached to the wood furnace. This way, if the fire died down in the wood furnace and it got cold, it would automatically switch to the electric furnace, which sends the warm air through the wood burning furnace to use the same ducts. This meant my dad wouldn’t have to go into the basement during the night to load the wood burning furnace anymore and, eventually, he just used the electric. So we have two thermostats on the wall, too. The one for the wood burning furnace is off, and we just use the one for the electric furnace.

With this new thumping noise, I am very perplexed. I’ve even started to try dashing (ha! As much as I can dash) to the basement, in hopes that the noise would happen again while I’m down there.

I have yet to hear it while I’m in the basement.

I’ve tried looking up possible causes, but none apply to our furnace. Some applied to gas furnaces, not electric. Others applied to a belt motor, but this one doesn’t have a belt. Other possibilities mentioned the sound happening when the furnace first starts, and this noise happens after the furnace has been running for a while. Etc.

I am totally perplexed.

As I described it to them and answered their questions, they were equally perplexed.

In the end, the one thing my brother could think of was to remove the chain from the damper on the old furnace. The old furnace has its own internal thermostat, which can’t really be turned off, so it might be acting up and trying to open the damper or something. It seems unlikely, but we can’t think of anything else.

So I’ve done that. I’ve since turned the electric furnace’s thermostat back up again a bit, so it’ll turn on sooner.

~~~ pause for the noise happening again ~~~

Okay, I think we figured it out.

I kept going into the basement to listen to the noise, only for it to happen after I’ve gone back upstairs. In fact, just as I reached the top of the stairs.

I finally got my daughter to walk around while I was downstairs.

It’s the floor. The floor joist (it’s all exposed) is in direct contact with the metal at the top of the furnace.

My daughter even found a spot to make the noise happen repeatedly, but it doesn’t seem to be just one spot. It happened while I was moving around in front of the doorway to my husband’s bedroom. The subfloor boards are diagonal, so I could simply have been standing on a different spot over the same board.

Which means, when I’m hearing it go off, it has nothing to do with the furnace being on. It might actually just be one of the heavier cats walking past the basement door, or even the floor shifting with temperature changes. The house shifting might also explain why it’s happening now, when it hadn’t happened before.

That is NOT what I expected at all.

I’ve got to tell my brother about this!

That is just the strangest thing ever.

Now I have to wonder if the floor shifting – sagging? – can actually damage the furnace!

Good grief, this house has some of the strangest problems creep up!

Time to go update my brother!

The Re-Farmer

Not done with us yet, and updates

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Brrr.

Winter is definitely not done with us yet!

This is actually warmed up a bit. When I checked during the night, it was -28C/-18F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F As I write this, we are at -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F

I did my short rounds this morning! I did make sure to check the ejector, though. The splash area is open, and the heat tape is warm, so that’s all working. I’ve been talking to my brother about what I’m seeing when the pump runs. It does take longer to empty that tank (almost 7 minutes, instead of about 5), and the speed of inflow, while consistent, with the water level in the filter no longer draining, is slower as well. Since this happens while the pump is running, that suggests the possibility of something in the venturi valve. The only way to know for sure is to pull it up and check, which we won’t do until the spring or summer.

The first thing I did this morning was tend to the outside cats, of course, and check on the isolation shelter. I’d noticed something about it last night, when looking out the kitchen window. There is a “ceiling” of rigid insulation under the roof. One full width piece with a notch cut out for the extension cord, and the other cut narrower to fill in the remaining space. That narrower piece was pushed back, and I could actually see through the clear roof panels into the shelter from the kitchen window! Not enough to tell where the cats where, but I shouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.

When I checked the shelter this morning, Midnight was gone. Only Fluffy was inside.

Some things were knocked about that I had to straighten up. While she eyeballed the open window as I did that, then refilled the food bowls, she would not go near me. When I came back to do the water, she was on the second level, but jumped down while I did the water and hid in a corner by the litter box below.

No sign of Midnight, anywhere. He’s probably going to make strange for a while, but I’m sure he’ll come back for food and warmth soon.

I didn’t like the idea of Fluffy being along in there, though, so when I saw The Grink, I decided to try and catch her (I think she’s a she). The Grink is one of the tinies and is among the crowd that regularly used the isolation shelter to hang out in. She’s not feral, but not socialized, either. When I did manage to touch her, she let me pet her and pick her up, and was more than happy to be put into the isolation shelter!

As I was finishing up and checked again, The Grink was in the cat bed in front of the heat lamp, grooming. It took a while to spot Fluffy, tucked into a shadowed corner.

Hopefully, over the next two weeks, she’ll warm up to us.

Last of all, I made sure to give them a can of cat food, which The Grink eagerly came over for. Fluffy was still hiding, but there are two food bowls in there now, so I hope she creeps over to at least one of them.

We’re expected to be a lot warmer tomorrow, but also to have snow all day, through to the day after. “Light snow showers” the forecast calls it. So I really don’t want to drive in that with the Costco shopping.

I was planning to visit my mother before heading to the city, but I think I will make an extra trip, first. Talking to my brother last night, I mentioned we’ll need to go into her apartment to make sure there’s no food going bad or anything. They had managed to visit her the other night, and remembered that we need to bring in clothes for her! She’s still wearing the same clothes as when she was went in for her appointment and ended up in the ER. They told me, she is even sleeping in her clothes with her shoes one (her feet get cold). I would have expected them to have given her a gown or something!

So I think I will go to her apartment first. She has had a bag – just a reusable grocery bag – set up as a “hospital bag”. She’s been complaining about her health and wanting to go to the hospital for a long time (and would get very upset when she’d go to the ER, they couldn’t find anything wrong and sent her home), so she had this bag for clothes and necessities. Hopefully, she still had that, and I’ll be able to find it, and make sure it does have everything she would need.

Then I’ll go to the hospital to visit with her before going to the city.

In the end, though, I’ll see how the truck runs when I got to warm it up before I leave. It should be fine, but I’m so flipping paranoid about breakdowns these days. I do have an emergency kit in the truck, and we have CAA, but still… this is not the kind of weather to take chances in.

We shall see how things work out!

Time to bundle up again start warming up the truck, and do another OBDII scan while I’m at it!

The Re-Farmer

Two more down, and much gratitude

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It’s done! Another spay and neuter of yard cats.

I prepped the cat carriers last night, including adding a couple of reflective cat collars around one of the handles for later. I have the collars linked together in a chain, so I just grabbed the two at one end. Which just happened to be a pink and a black.

While I got the truck warming up and opened the gate, my daughter brought the carriers to the sun room to see which cats we could catch. When I got to the sun room, she had the fluffy tabby in with her, and she was one we really wanted to get, so we closed up the door. It took a while – the poor thing was panicking – but I was eventually able to get her while she was on the window shelf and start scritching her neck and shoulders. She actually stopped trying to run away. She was still very nervous, but she accepted the pets until I could finally pick her up and get her into the carrier my daughter brought close.

While we were trying to get her, I spotted a collar loose on one of the cat beds. Oops.

Once she was secure we opened the door again, and several for the regular males immediately came in, expecting feeding time. One of them was a grey and white, with no collar. I was able to check his ear and confirm that this was Colin, so after the fluffy girl was in the carrier, I got the collar we found onto him.

It was not the colour of collar he had before, though! Which means there was another fixed cat missing his collar out there.

One of the other males that came in was Midnight, our one almost completely black outside cat. He has a small white blaze on his chest and that’s it. He is social enough that my daughter was able to pick him up and put him in the other carrier while I quickly shut it.

He was NOT happy about that!

From there, we loaded them into the truck, and I headed out right away, even though it was quite early. I didn’t even stop to close the gate, leaving that for my daughter to take care of, after she gave the outside cats their kibble and warm water.

I am so glad I left as early as I did!

The first part of my drive, the road wasn’t too bad, but I still drove under the speed limit. The sudden appearance of at least 5 deer on the side of the road was one reason why!

Then I found myself behind some slow driving vehicle with lots of flashing amber lights on it that kept blinding me. I wasn’t able to pass until it pulled over near the exit I needed, which is when I could finally see it was a snow plow.

The next section of the drive was one I was concerned about, as it was very slippery, and where there was a major accident, yesterday. The conditions were much better, though with oncoming traffic, I could see the reflections of black ice on the highway that I couldn’t see, otherwise.

There was a cross road I needed to take and it, as always, was pretty bad. Lots of icy patches.

By the time I reached the final section of the route, the sun was starting to rise, so I could see that there was quite a bit of fog around. The highway was wet, but not slippery, at least.

Then I got to within a couple of kilometers of the city when I drove into a wall of fog. Visibility dropped to just a few feet. Which wasn’t too much of a problem, except that I couldn’t slow down safely because someone was tailgating me! Thankfully, they did eventually back off a bit.

With all that, I got to the vet clinic only 10 minutes early. Normally, with the time that I left home, I would have been at least half an hour early.

While waiting for the clinic to open, I messaged the family to let them know I arrived safely. I’d also kept the Cat Lady up to date when I left, so I let her know I’d arrived safely, too. Then I made sure to post a road conditions report on the highways group I’m on, so others could know how things were for driving.

Several other vehicles arrived while I was waiting, too, before the Cat Lady arrived. We talked for a while and she transferred some donations she had for us. In a bag, there was a water fountain with filters, plus she had more wet cat food with poultry in it that she couldn’t use anymore, plus bags of dry cat food – including two bags of cat food for senior cats. We had several elderly ladies that this will be good for!

She was also getting phone calls and having other stuff to deal with, so when the clinic opened, I left her to it and brought the cats inside. While waiting my turn, I made sure to put the pink collar on the carrier with Midnight. A black collar on a black cat won’t help us easily identify him as a fixed, when the other mostly black cats are around.

As I was checking the cats in, they needed names, so I decided the fluffy tabby was now Fluffy. When someone came to get the carriers, I brought up the collars, explaining what we were using them for, and made sure to say the pink one was for the black cat, not the black one. That got an understanding laugh!

After a while, though, they needed the Cat Lady’s signature, so I went back to the parking lot. By then, she was with someone else that brought a cat she was covering the spay for, too. So we all went in, finished processing our two, then did the third. That done, she parted ways with the other person, then talked to me a bit more about my expected connection with the woman from the feral and stray group. It turns out this person’s habit of posting pictures without permission is one of the reasons the Cat Lady no longer uses her Facebook; she just used Messenger and that’s it. Yet, this person does help a lot of people and manages to get a lot of donations, so any help is welcome, as long as we’re careful not to give out personal information.

From there, we parted ways and I headed to the Walmart to do my shopping. Normally, I would have stayed in the area, until I noticed my tire looked low and checked it. That was when I started getting messages from the other lady, which I had to answer in between driving around, getting gas, then having to go to another gas station across the street to pump my tire, since the compressor at the first station was out of service. I still had to go back to hit the Canadian Tire for litter pellets, so we arranged to meet at a nearby Tim Hortons.

I got there early enough to have “lunch”, but they still had only their breakfast menu, which was fine by me.

In the middle of all this, I got a call from the Cat Lady. The clinic knew to call me for pick up, but to call her for anything financial.

They’d called her about Fluffy.

Now, these are yard cats, and Fluffy is the more feral one. While Midnight was more social, neither of them have really been handled much at all. We also just assume they all have ear mites.

It turned out that Fluffy has really, really bad ear mites in one ear. Bad enough that there was a risk of them getting past the ear drum and to her brain, and to cause a severe infection.

The vet that called her is new to this clinic, and the Cat Lady could tell she wasn’t used to dealing with yard cats. When asked, how did it get this bad without anyone noticing, she had to explain that this cat had probably never been handled until today (she was correct). These are yard cats, so we just assume they will have ear mites, but that’s about it. No, we wouldn’t be able to give her ear drops three times a day. This is a yard cat. Especially not drops that have to be put in at a specific angle that is hard to do with a house pet!

As for treatment, this is a yard cat. It makes no sense to go all out financially on an outdoor cat that will probably just get ear mites again.

In the end, the Cat Lady authorized a couple of injections, for both the ear mites and the infection, but that was it. It still added more than $200 to her bill! They want to have the cat brought back to follow up in two weeks. We will be keeping her and Midnight in the isolation shelter for two weeks, so that is at least possible, but we certainly couldn’t keep trapping her to bring her back regularly after that! Bringing her indoors is not an option, either.

They talked about things like quality of life, and how she might end up going deaf in one ear, and we’re both… well, then we have a cat that’s deaf in one ear. As for if she gets sick because of the infection, or if the ear mites get bad enough to cross over to the brain, then it would actually be kinder to put her down. When it comes to the yard cats, sick cats disappear and don’t come back. Whether they just die somewhere, or if the coyotes or foxes get them, we never know for sure.

The Cat Lady doesn’t think it would come to that. Fluffy hasn’t actually shown any signs of being sick. She’s been eating fine, she’s active, she hangs out in the sun room regularly. With the treatment she’s getting, she’ll probably recover and be just fine.

In the end, she agreed to talk to them about her on the phone in a week, and make a decision from there.

Then, while I was waiting to meet with the feral and stray cat group lady, I got a call from the clinic. Both cats were done and recovering, and would be ready to pick up in about an hour. Meanwhile, my husband remembered something, and I needed to go back to the Walmart.

Which is about when the cat group lady arrived!

So we ended up not sitting and talking as we originally expected to, and went to transfer stuff from her vehicle to mine. Which was easy to do, as she just happened to park next to my truck!

I couldn’t believe how much she was able to donate!

There were a number of kibble bags of various sizes. I think the largest were about 5kg. I actually lost track of how many smaller ones there were!

Then there were the cases of canned can food. All Tuna. I’m not sure how many are in each case, as they’re all cardboard boxes sealed in plastic, but there ended up being 10 cases! She said those ones were from the humane society.

After the truck was loaded, she asked to take a picture with me and the open truck box. That’ll get posted on FB, but there isn’t anything identifiable on there. Not even my face, since my FB profile picture is cats. I don’t mind that. I was so happy with the very generous donation!

She did ask questions about where we lived and how many cats we’re caring for, but “in the boonies” was a good enough answer (she does know we’re near our little hamlet), and I honestly don’t know how many cats we’re caring for outside. I’ve mostly given up trying to do a head count, as they run around so much, but it’s different every day. Sometimes by a very wide range!

That done, I made a quick run back into the Walmart, then headed to the clinic, just in time for pick up.

While going through how things went, they basically wouldn’t let me leave with the cats without making an appointment, two weeks from now. The estimate was emailed to the Cat Lady, along with the bill for the three cats she covered today, but I asked what it was. I know that Cat Lady has already extended her budget as much as she could for the extra treatment for Fluffy today. I’ll have to go through our own budget to see if we can over the amount. I think we can, but not if it ends up costing more.

I’ve actually been chatting with the Cat Lady while I’ve been writing this.

Once we had all the details done, it was time to bring the kitties home!

They were not happy.

Fluffy was actually the calmer of the two. You can’t see it in the photo, but they did manage to get the black reflective collar on her (when the clinic called me, we talked about the breakaway collars, too). I think. It wasn’t attached to the carrier’s handle anymore, but I honestly haven’t seen it through her fur.

If you click through to the next photo, I managed to get Midnight to almost face me, so his bright pink collar is hidden, too.

For the first part of the drive, Midnight was really fighting to get out of that carrier! Fluffy was, too, but not as violently. Eventually, though, they both settled down and were quiet for the rest of the ride home.

Meanwhile, my daughter made sure the isolation shelter was ready, with the ramp door closed. When I got home, she helped me get them into the shelter through one of the upper level sliding windows.

They both immediately went to the lower level to get out, only to find the door closed.

They were not happy.

My daughter and I then unloaded the van – with a special gift for her for all her help that my husband reminded me to pick up waiting as a surprise. Her PCOS has really been giving her a hard time lately, so we know she’s been really struggling to do as much as she has been.

After unloading the truck, she parked it while I opened up one of the donated bags of kibble with pumpkin in it and gave the outside cats an early feeding to distract them.

They really, really liked it!

As we unpacked the back from the Cat Lady with the water fountain and filters in it, we kept finding more and more stuff buried underneath! Including a package of special wipes to clean cats. Those will come in quite handy for our messy butt cats! There were even some food bowls, and more bags of cat food on the bottom.

The Cat Lady is so awesome!

Once everything was put away, I grabbed one of the loose cat food cans for Midnight and Fluffy. That will be one of the benefits of being in the isolation shelter. They will regularly get wet cat food while they are in there, and the food bowls are positioned so the heat bulb will keep the wet cat food from freezing.

We got so much wet and dry cat food donated today, we could probably do without buying more for the rest of month! I probably will, anyhow, because it’s always good to have extra stocked up, but this makes it so much easier on the budget. What a huge help! I know so many people are really struggling these days, so it’s amazing that people are able to make donations at all.

I am so incredibly grateful to both the Cat Lady and the stray and feral group lady for it all. We were just blown away! So much more than I expected.

We are going to have some very happy kitties for the next while!

Well… maybe not the ones in the isolation shelter right now. 😄 They’ll get used to it, though, and I’m sure they’ll get used to the warmth, food and water, all to themselves!

The kitties that usually use the isolation shelter are going to have to get used to using the sun room and the cat house again! 😄

They’ll manage. 😉

All in all, it’s been a very good day!

The Re-Farmer

I think we found the problem

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The heat bulb in the sun room has been turning on and off over the past few days. My guess was the cats knocked it about a bit while jumping on and off the platform it’s hanging from. I’d give it a bit of a wiggle, and the bulb would turn on again.

This morning, I gave the cats their kibble and warm water, as usual. Then, as I was going back into the sun room, I realized the bulb was off again. It was on when I went past, maybe a minute or two earlier.

So I did the usual wiggle, and it didn’t turn on. I turned the switch off, checked the lamp and the shade (which was loose), then turned it back on.

The metal lamp shade has a small round opening near the neck. When I switched the light back on, I thought I saw something through the hole, so I turned it on and off again. Was that a flicker of light at the bottom of the filament, visible through the opening?

So I shut it off and took the bulb completely out. The filament looked perfectly fine. I decided to screw it back in and try again.

I changed my mind.

I’d say, we found the problem!

The socket looked clean and clear, though.

I ended up putting back one of the ceramic bulbs that these warmer heat bulbs replaced. It’s heating up as it should, though it’s only 150w, instead of 250w, so it’s not going to be as cozy for the kitties.

The temperatures have warmed up, though. As I write this, we’ve been at 1C/34F for some time, and it’s expected to stay above freezing for a few more hours. Oh! I just double checked the weather app on my desktop, and it now says our high is supposed to reach 2C/36F today! We’re also supposed to get a mix of rain and snow later today, too.

Looks like the driveway isn’t going to be done today, either. Aside from the winds that picked up again, the warmth will make the snow sticky. From experience, I know how quickly that jams up the auger.

The driveway is passable, though, so not clearing it won’t be an issue. The area in the yard that I cleared instead was more of an issue, as the truck was having difficulty in the turn around areas.

With the warmer temperatures, the less warm ceramic bulb in the sun room should be okay. We’ll have to make sure to get 250w versions for next winter, though. I prefer them to the ones that are actual lights for this. The only down side is, if they stop working, we can’t tell without actually checking them for heat.

We should also pick up a few more smoke detectors. One for the isolation shelter and one for the sun room, at the very least!

Just in case.

The Re-Farmer

Not today

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Oh, how lovely it feels outside right now! I did my morning rounds and even remembered to wear a lighter coat instead of my parka, so I wouldn’t over heat.

What I didn’t do was break out little Spewie to clear the rest of the driveway. Not today!

As far as the pain levels go, I could do it, but I know myself well enough by now to know that if I did, I would be useless for the next couple of days – and we’ve got too much going on in the next while!

One of those things is to hopefully be able to snag this fluffy lady and get her to the vet on the 30th.

She needs a name, still. So far, no name seems to stick, other than “fluffy lady”, and we have several of those!

After I took this picture, I tried to reach out to pet her, but she kept backing off. I was able to move around and reach her more from behind. Once I started to pet her, she was good with it. She does love to be pet, and I was even able to give her double handed skritches on either side of her head. But we can’t just walk up to her, or reach out to her. We still have to sort of sneak in to pet her.

I am 99% sure she is pregnant right now. Last year, she’s the one who dropped her litter all over the yard and abandoned them, leaving me to have to euthanize the survivors. She got pregnant very late in the season. This year, she went into heat so early, there is almost no chance of survival for her kittens. Especially if she drops her litter again, like last year. So getting her spayed is a higher priority than getting Brussel spayed. We know Brussel knows how to be a mother. The chances of her kittens surviving is still really, really low, just because of the time of year, but we do know she has a safe nest somewhere beyond the inner yard.

As for which male we are able to catch, it could be any one of several friendly males. It might even be this one.

I was actually petting both Magda, when she was up on the shelf, and Kohl (you can just see Magda’s face beside Kohl, near the window) when this tabby pushed himself in, demanding pets. I believe this is the male that was pretty sick for a while, and allowed us to tend to him. He’s grown quite a bit since then!

It was interesting to see these three, plus a couple more kittens on the cat bed inside, and realize they are all almost the same age. There would be only days or, at most, a couple of weeks age difference between them. Magda, another grey and white, and a black and white cow baby the girls call The Grink, are all really, really tiny. Then there’s this tabby, Kohl and her brother, Rabi, who are all so much bigger! Kohl and Rabi were the first litter last year, so they are the oldest among the kittens, but by this time, the others should have caught up.

With things freezing in the snow and being visible that would normally not be seen in the summer, we have a pretty good idea of why some of these kittens are really small. At least one of them has a serious case of round worms. I was very perplexed when I found what turned out to be frozen throw up. There was nothing in the ice but these worms; no partially digested food or anything like that. I’ve seen tape worms before, but I’ve never seen roundworms before, so I was quite perplexed by what I saw. They are very curly!

I’d sent a picture to the Cat Lady (it’s a good thing we’re such friends! 😄😂) and she identified it for me. These are the worms that Button had. He needed to be treated for worms three times before he was clear of them. During treatment, she said it was like he was pooping spaghetti, it was so bad! Once he was clear of them, though, he started growing again, and is now almost normal size for his age. Still on the small side, but not abnormally so.

The question is, how do we even begin to treat yard cats for round worms? It’s not like we can give them a pill. For starters, we have no idea which cat had those throw ups I found. We’d have to basically treat all of them – yesterday, I got a head count of possibly 36 – and just hope we get the infected ones. I lean towards thinking it’s The Grink, a cat we can’t get close to, but there are the two other very tiny cats that likely also have them.

One of the recommendations is to feed them pumpkin. Which would be great if we could do cat soup for the outside cats. Without heated food bowls, though, we had to stop giving them the kibble we softened with warm water we’d been doing in the fall. We could mix in the lysine and ground pumpkin seed with that. When the softened kibble started freezing before they could finish eating it, there was no point in continuing. Once we start consistently getting temperatures above freezing, we can start softening the kibble for them again. That makes dosing them with supplements easier. Not that there’s any way to control the doses this way, but at least they’d get some.

The jury is out on how well pumpkin actually words for this. It might be worth getting more of the Happy Poops stuff as a supplement. Looking up the ingredients – pumpkin, flax seed, coconut, chicory root, turmeric, ginger and banana – I found that several of them were noted as helping against worms. The larger jar would be pretty expensive, though. It’s one thing to buy it for the inside cats, where we at least know that they won’t just get infested again. Quite another to get something like that for yard cats.

There’s only so much we can do for them, but we do the best we can.

The Re-Farmer

Warming up, and pretty ladies!

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Well, we did reach our high of -17C/1F today – at about 6-7am. By the time I headed outside to do my morning rounds, it was down to -19C/-2F, which isn’t too bad, except the wind chill was -32C/-26F It was coming from the north- northeast today, so the house acted as a wind break for the most part. I made a point of checking the ejector this morning, where I found myself getting hit by the wind, full blast.

Not fun.

Ejector is fine, though. I checked the heat tape and could feel warmth.

As I write this, it’s just past 5pm, and we’ve cooled down to -20C/-4F, but the wind chill is still -32C/-26F

This afternoon, I made sure to check on the truck, get it running for a while, then hooking up the OBDII to do a scan. The same sensor code is coming up; nothing else, so that’s good.

While letting the engine run and warm up, I took advantage of the sunshine and relative shelter from the wind and shoveled out the paths. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but the winds blew drifts into all the paths, with some not even visible anymore. Just flat snow. The kitties will be much happier, now that they can get around the yard more easily!

Speaking of kitties, check out these beauties.

The first one is the fluffy girl that we can sometimes pet while she is eating. She lost her first litter last year. Unfortunately, she is now in heat. Brussel is being left alone, so I have to assume she’s pregnant, but the boys are all over this one.

This is a really bad time of year for a cat to go into heat. They’d both be having kittens at the end of February or so. Chances of survival are pretty much nil.

I’m really hoping we can catch her, or Brussel, for the spay next week. We’re booked for one male and one female, and I don’t expect to have any problems catching the males. They are far less feral than the ladies.

If you click through to the next photo, you can see another of our fluffy beauties; one of last year’s kittens. Totally feral. No idea if it’s male or female. We have at least one, maybe two, more fluffy ones like that that are completely unsocialized, and won’t go near us. I had to zoom in quite a bit to get that picture!

I had a chance to talk to the Cat Lady today. Yesterday, I’d connected with someone in a feral and stray cat group on FB. I normally am not active on there, after being burned by similar groups in the past. Someone was offering donated cat food, though, so I contacted her. I told her outright that we’ve been having difficult getting help, and only one rescue has been willing to help us. We messaged each other privately, and ended up arranging to connect when I’m in the smaller city, waiting for the spay and neuter to be done. I will be meeting the Cat Lady that day, too.

After, I let the Cat Lady now that I’d connected with someone about possible food donations. Today, she phoned me and asked if it was a particular person by name.

It was the same person.

She then warned me to watch out for her. She says, her heart may be in the right place, but she has… issues. Issues that have resulted in her calling the provincial vet on people she had been “helping”, which then resulted in a whole lot of cats being euthanized instead of TS/NR’d. More alarming is that she has been sending cats out of province with “brokers”. The cats get picked up by people in unmarked white vans, and are never heard from again. She apparently is full convinced that these “brokers” are adopting the cats out to good homes in the other province – a province that is just as overwhelmed with cats as rescues are out here (we’ve lived in that province a couple of times, over the years). The Cat Lady suspects the cats are actually going to a lab, based on her own observations before leaving the big rescue she had been connected with when I first met her.

Basically, she said that if we can get help with cat food, getting cats fixed or getting them adopted, that could be fine, but not to give any personal information, not to say where we live, and especially not to send pictures, as those will get shared all over online without our permission. It’s people like this woman, and the rescues she’s connected with, that have resulted in the Cat Lady backing away from her own rescue, and basically working with just a couple of people like us, and that’s it.

As she was telling me this, I remembered some of her past stories she’d told me, about how and why she left the big rescue. No names were mentioned, so I hadn’t known this person was one of the people she’d had issues with.

Well, we just have to be careful, which I try to be, anyhow.

One of the things that came up was how many cats we’re feeding right now. With how cold it’s been, I haven’t done head counts in a long time. The last time I did, I think I counted about 36, or in that range.

Today was nice enough that I tried to do a head count after doing their evening food and water. I counted “only” 23! That’s a huge drop. I had been seeing as many as 15 crowded into the top of the isolation shelter. Today, I counted 5. Looking into the sun room from the bathroom, I’ve counted as many as 20 that I could see, most bunched together under the heat lamp. Today, I counted 8 in the sun room. The rest that I counted were running around outside.

Twenty three cats is still too many, and I know that there is likely cats that just hadn’t come to the house for food yet, but that’s still a big change.

Well, we’ll see how much they change again, as the weather warms up.

Tomorrow, we’re looking at a high of -15C/5F, which is supposed to happen at about the time my daughter and I will be at her doctor’s appointment. We will take advantage of the trip to pick up a few groceries and some more kibble. Our first stock up shopping trip is a week away, so we won’t be getting much.

Man, I really hope the long range forecast into February is somewhat accurate. I’m now seeing forecasts for highs of 8C/46F!

That is going to be so awesome.

The Re-Farmer

Well, technically, we’re warmer…

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Good grief.

Yeah, the thermometer shows it’s gotten warmer, but we’ve got another bit of a storm happening. The winds are quite as severe as a few days ago, but with more snow.

When I headed out this morning, we were at -26C/-15F, but the wind chill was at -39C/-38F I spent as little time outside as possible! Basically, just give the outside cats non-frozen food (their food trays are filled with frozen kibble) and warm water, and that’s it. I did manage to get a few pictures, including a show of this gorgeous girl.

I want to pet her. I want to brush the mats out of her fur.

I want her to not be pregnant.

I assume she is, as the boys are leaving her alone, now, though when I checked out the bathroom window last night, I saw some shenanigans happening with Midnight and a female I couldn’t make out under him; definitely not a big fluff ball like Brussel. I wasn’t going to even try interrupting them, since that would just scare cats outside into the cold.

As I write this, we have warmed up to -19C/2F with a wind chill of -32C/-25F This time, the wind is coming up from the south at 34km/h21m/h, though we certainly have higher gusts that I can see blowing past my window.

We are supposed to reach a high of -17C/1F I don’t know what time of day they use to determine when the high happens, though, as the temperatures are supposed to continue warming slightly, to reach -15C/5F by about 10pm tonight, and stay there until about 2am, when we’re supposed to cool down. The “high” of tomorrow is supposed to be -19C/2F, but that’s supposed to be at about 5am, and things are supposed to keep cooling down for the rest of the day.

Thursday, at least, we’re supposed to have a high of -15C/5F. I got mixed up and was thinking that’s when we’re taking a couple of cats in for a spay and a neuter, but that’s on the 30th. This Thursday is a follow up doctor’s appointment for my daughter. Her appointment isn’t until 3pm, though, and we’re supposed to get snow again, starting Thursday evening and continuing all through Friday. Friday, however, is supposed to have a high of -3C/27F!! Then, on the 28th, we’re supposed to actually go above freezing!

If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, things should stay pretty mild, with only one or two days below -20C/-4F in February.

I certainly home so.

This polar vortex may have some other negative effects that we won’t know about until spring. While our Liberty apple tree is planted in a sheltered spot, and protected someone with an anti-deer wrap, it’s still a zone 4 fruit tree. These temperatures may have killed it.

Our winter sowing experiment may also be affected. While the sown garden beds did get a thick layer of mulch, they would also have benefited from a thicker layer of snow to insulate them. We just don’t have a lot of snow this year (which is NOT a complaint!). Some seeds, like the onion seeds, I’m sure will survive just fine. Others, I’m not so sure!

Well, we’ll see in the spring. Once things warm up and melt away enough, I’ll remove the mulches. Then we’ll see whether I’m making a mistake by not buying more seeds this year.

Oh, who am I kidding. I am sure there are some seeds out there I will end up buying!

With the cold, the snow and the winds, I am cheering myself up by thinking garden thoughts!

The Re-Farmer

So glad…

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… that I convinced my mother to do her errands yesterday, and not today.

The high for today was forecast to be -4C/25F – with a blizzard warning. During the night, I’d checked the weather and we had actually reached -1C/30F at 4am.

It has been dropping steadily, since then.

Temperature-wise, we’re still at a mild -11C/12F as I write this. The wind chill, however is -32C/-26F

This is what it was like when I did my short rounds this morning. (scroll through the slideshow to see a brief video)

The usual bunch is warm and cozy in the isolation shelter. In the next image, the older and more feral cats were taking shelter in various places. The water bowl shelter is more sheltered from the wind than the kibble shelter, though under the kibble shelter, which has a sheet of rigid foam insulation on the ground, plus another under the shelter floor, was a popular spot. The plastic wrapped catio was also being used, as well as the old dog house. When we get a chance, we need to open the roof and check on the heat bulb in there, as I don’t think it’s working anymore. Usually, there is melted snow on the roof above where the bulb is, and there isn’t any, even when we had the warmer days.

The sun room, however, is a very busy place. Looking out the bathroom window, not long ago, I counted 21 cats that I could see. There may have been more in corners we can’t see through the window. The thermometer on the wall was reading 0C/32F, which is likely reading on the cold side, as it’s on an exterior wall and between windows, one of which is a single pane instead of double pain.

In the video, you get some idea of how windy it was, in general. I wasn’t able to catch some of the more severe gusts, and wasn’t about to hang out outside for it! We were getting warnings of 70km/43m winds, with gusts up to 100km/62m As I write this, however were are down to 42km/26m winds.

When I got inside and started checking my local groups on FB, I found it had just exploded with posts from people describing terrible road conditions, and telling people to please stay home. Some had just arrived at their destinations. At least one described starting out, then turning around and going home, because they simply couldn’t see the road.

Soon after, one of the weather groups started posting about highway closures. Some, just sections were closed, but one highway was closed entirely.

For us, we are pretty sheltered from the winds coming from the north-northwest, and we didn’t get a lot of snow. Our odd climate bubble seems to have protected us again. We still have high winds, of course, and I even saw the sun come out briefly, a few minutes ago.

As always, when we have high winds, we are watching the trees. Especially the spruce grove, with all those dead trees. With the wind direction, though, if any do come down, they will fall away from the house. There’s really just one that is a threat to the house itself.

If my mother had gotten me to come today to help with her shopping, as she had wanted to originally, I would have had to cancel, and she would have been stuck. She is just a couple of blocks from the grocery store, though, and they do deliver, so she would have been okay for food. The pharmacy only delivers medications, though, so she could not have gotten her shopping there.

Speaking of which, I’m glad my husband’s prescription refills were delivered yesterday, too!

So we get to stay home and hibernate for the next few days. The temperatures will continue to drop, but will start warming up again next week – just in time for my daughter’s follow up doctor’s appointment!

In other things…

Yesterday morning, I’d poured more of the calcium chloride into the ejector’s venturi pipe, as my brother requested. It never filled, which means it was draining at the bottom. The level in the stack pipe did rise, but not very much. In talking to him about it, we figured that, if everything was thawed out, the fluid could possibly back up into the main pipe to the house.

Yesterday evening, after I got home from doing my mother’s shopping, I went into the basement.

I found a puddle of water on the floor, near the septic pump.

This was good news!

I checked around the pump itself, of course. The pipes and connectors were all dry. The puddle had already started to dry, so it had been there for some hours, and the only other place I found moisture was under the pump itself.

Directly under the loose and open outflow pipe to the ejector.

I found a container that I could fit under it, even though it is unlikely to happen again, but this was a really positive thing. It means that the ejector is now completely thawed out, and the the main pipe to the house is clear. The pipe itself has a slope to it, so it would always drain away from the house. Pouring in the ice melter was just enough to push the water that would always be in the pipe, back up into the basement a bit.

Which means we could set the pump up to the ejector again!

My brother was talking about coming out this weekend to do that, weather willing.

Today, I told him, don’t even think about it! We can stay with the emergency diverter for another week. Next weekend is supposed to be much better. Thankfully, he is able to work from home today, too, so no commuting in this storm! They got hit harder than we did.

Wow. I was just going over this post, looking for typos, when my phone started screaming at me. Our province just issued an emergency alert for hazardous road conditions, high winds and blizzard like conditions. They are asking people in the south or our province to avoid driving, conditions are worsening, visibility is near zero, and multiple highways are closed.

We are further north than the warning area, though.

Not that we’re about to go anywhere, anyhow!

I am so glad for that!

The Re-Farmer

Taking advantage of a nice day!

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Today didn’t go above freezing, like yesterday, but it did reach a high of -3C/27F, which is absolutely gorgeous for this time of year . We need to take advantage of it while we can, though. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have the same high of the day, and then it’s supposed to drop to a high of -23C/-9F the next day! We’re supposed to keep getting colder for a couple more days before things start warming up to above -20C/-4F again.

With that on the horizon, when my mother called yesterday about getting help with her shopping, I was already planning to call her to arrange doing it today. My mother, after telling me her fridge is sooo empty, tried to have it on Friday, because there is a social event in her building on Thursdays. I reminded her, I’m doing her shopping for her. She isn’t coming along, so she can still go visit with her neighbours! I just didn’t want her to be with an empty fridge any longer than necessary.

So that was worked out.

Before I headed out this morning, I had a little extra to do during my morning rounds.

It was time to put some pretty collars on some cats!

Here, from left to right, Colin, Judgement and Stinky are sporting their handsome new necklaces. These are not only brightly colours, but have rows of reflective strands in them. I was also able to get one on Gouda, and Nosey showed up towards the end and got one.

This is Gouda’s old collar, that showed up in the sun room after he lost it, as other cats were dragging it around and playing with it.

This colour also has the rows of reflective strands in, though with the collar being scratched until it frayed like this, I doubt they could be seen! The breakaway collar is still there, but the loop of collar on one end had come undone. This has happened before. These are the collars I’ve been able to find at the local dollar store. I still have one like it left that got buried. I just need to remove the bell and adjust the length before I add it to the others.

These are all the prepared collars. Since the yard cats earn their keep by hunting rodents for us, all the bells get removed, first. The ones on the bottom are the ones I found at the local dollar store. The bells on those ones need a pair of pliers to removed them, as the bells are on a ring that goes around the fabric of the collar. The new reflective ones have D rings for the bells. Plus, the rings the bells were on were the kind with overlapping ends, so they could be slid off like a key ring.

I’m keeping all the bells. Eventually, I plan to crochet a bunch of cat toys and will include the bells inside them.

We have one spay and one neuter booked through the rescue at the end of the month. I plan to bring a couple of collars along for the clinic to put on them while they are still under. Much easier than trying to get a collar on a mostly feral cat.

I really, really, really want to snag this one.

Meaning Brussel, the gorgeous fluffy calico with four boys hanging around.

Yes, she has gone into heat.

In the middle of January.

If we can’t catch her, she would be having kittens at the end of February. Way too early. The chances of survival would be almost nil.

But, how do we catch her? I don’t want to use a trap, yet, as it’s too still too cold, and who knows which cat would actually get caught in the trap. I might be able to get her closed up in the catio – she actually went into there this morning, and I could have closed her in, but she would need a heated water bowl, and there is no power available out there. The catio itself is a mini greenhouse, plus it has two box nests, one insulated, one with insulation between it and the ground, and a food bowl. Once things are warm enough that water won’t freeze, the catio could also be used as an isolation shelter, but not yet!

Brussel is one of the more feral cats but at least she does come closer and sometimes goes into the sun room. Her sister, Sprout, sometimes comes closer to house, but runs away as soon as she sees us. Sprout it one of the most feral in the colony.

Gotta work on that lady! She would be a priority over the other females right now, if we could snag her.

Aside from bedecking cats with snazzy new necklaces (the two littles that got fixed won’t be getting theirs quite yet), the other additional task of the morning was to pour more calcium chloride into the ejector. My brother asked me to pour it into the venturi pipe first, see if that can be filled, before pouring it into the stand pipe around it.

The two jugs were on the old oil drum my brother dragged over to use as a work surface. I started with the one that had only about a quarter jug left. Once that was done, I cracked open the second one.

As my brother expected, showing that the venturi valve is, indeed, no longer frozen, the level of liquid inside the venturi pipe did not seem to increase. The level in the stand pipe did increase, slowly. What would be happening is liquid at the bottom might be draining slowly into the main pipe.

It wasn’t until I was pouring the last of the calcium chloride into the pipe that I realized I was hearing an odd sound from inside the jug.

It was slush.

The liquid ice melter, had started to freeze!

Part of this is because they were sitting on metal, which would have made the bottoms a lot colder. The other part is that, while they were sitting there, the contents separated in the cold, with the water freezing at the bottom.

After closing up the ejector and wrapping it up again, the tarp, I nestled both jugs into the black plastic, on the east side of the set up, so that they would get the most sun and warmth to thaw out.

I hope we get one extra warm day on the weekend, as I expect my brother will want to come out on Saturday to switch the pipes back on the septic pump. I would then trudge out to the ejector for when he’s ready to test it, so I can message him and let him know if it’s working or not.

If it does work, we’ll have to make a point of using lots of water so the septic pump will turn on a few times and wash out the calcium chloride. The fitting at the bottom of the ejector is brass, which might corrode if it’s exposed to it for too long.

Once all that was done, it wasn’t long before I headed out to the truck to set up the OBDII scanner and make sure it is still just the sensor triggering the check engine light. I probably don’t need to do that, but I’m paranoid about having just one vehicle available.

My husband was expecting a prescription delivery today, so I left the gate open when I headed out, and the girls made sure to keep a phone handy and be available to get the delivery.

I timed my departure for when I could pick up our favourite fried chicken and wedges for lunch at the gas station – and top up the gas tank.

One thing my mother needs to get done that I cannot do for her is get cash from the bank, and she is no longer physically up to going to the bank in person. She doesn’t have a bank card (she did get one and my brother has it for safe keeping), as she wouldn’t know how to use it, nor would she trust it, so it’s cash only. My brother, as her Power of Attorney, is the only person who can do it for her. I brought it up with my brother, at her request, to see if there was some way to include me in the PoA (I do NOT want to be PoA at all!). He will have to take a day off work and make an appointment with our mother at the bank to work things out, and has no idea when he’ll be able to do that. Hopefully, some workaround be found.

We’ll figure it out.

After my mother and I had our lunch together, we went over her list and then I went to the pharmacy and the grocery store for her. I got back just in time for the social worker from the senior’s centre to arrive and start setting up their weekly event. I was able to get everything unloaded and put away, before starting time, so that worked out quite well.

My daughters, meanwhile, were also taking advantage of the warm day and have set up the laundry. No one has had a chance to climb onto the roof and check the vent yet (they climb through a window upstairs, rather than use a ladder, as it’s safer that way), so we’ve got the hose running out the door again. Since it’s going to be set up, anyhow, I’ll also take advantage of it and find things to wash. It may be warmer right now, but we still need to make sure to bring the hose in as soon as possible, before any remaining water starts to freeze, or the plastic starts to get brittle and crack.

One of these days, we’ll be able to do laundry like normal people again. 😄😄

Getting all this stuff done during the few warm days we have right now is a lot like “making hay while the sun shines” in the summer! We’re going to be hit with the bitter cold again, soon enough.

I can’t complain, though. For all that we are getting these cold spells, it’s really been a fairly mild winter. Not as mild as last year’s El Nińo winter, but still much nicer than the first few winters we had after moving here!

What the heck???

I just checked my computer’s weather app.

We are now under a blizzard warning.

We were expecting a couple of hours with snow this evening, then more in the wee hours of the morning, but this is the first blizzard warning I’m seeing! With winds up to 70km/h (43mph), they’re now saying. Looking at the weather radar, it seems that most of the system will pass to the north of us.

Mind you, the same weather app is saying the snow has already started where we are, and I see no snow falling at all, outside my window. So maybe our weird climate bubble is doing its thing again.

As I write this, our temperature is still a balmy -4C/25F, though the windchill is at -15C/5C. Still not too bad right now. We shall see!

At least the yard babies have plenty of food, water and shelter.

The Re-Farmer

A day of surprises

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Today was expected to be a warm on, though the forecast kept changing when it came to what our high was supposed to be. In the end, it was a glorious 3C/37F! It’s past 6:30pm as I start this, and we are still at 1C/34F It is so awesome!

Things had warmed up pretty constantly overnight, so while I was doing my morning rounds, I was able to check on the frozen ejector. My brother had brought over one of his tarps to cover it, but until this morning, I hadn’t seen just how long it was! It took a while to get it off, and I made sure to lay it out on the snow, so that I could fold it in half (black side out) for later.

After very carefully removing the elbow and cap, the first thing I saw was that the venturi pipe – the discharge pipe – inside the 4″ stand pipe was loose and could move around. My brother and I left a length of copper pipe nearby, supported by a fence post and a tree, so it couldn’t freeze in the snow, that I used to see how far down the ice was. I was able to get the copper pipe its entire length in, and never hit ice! It was the same inside the venturi pipe. I was extra careful while doing this, as the last thing I needed to do was drop the thing! It’s a few feet shorter than the height of the stand pipe, so if that hadn’t, I would not have been able to get it out again.

As for the venturi pipe, while I could wiggle it around, it was still solid at the bottom. That could have just been the venturi valve properly seated at the bottom, but I wasn’t about to force it out to find out.

This is very encouraging, though, and a very pleasant surprise. I was expecting it to still be frozen a few feet down. We might be able to hook things up to the pump again soon!

For now, I left it as it as it was and covered it back up again, tying the tarp around itself so the wind won’t blow it off. I didn’t add more of the liquid ice melter. I updated my brother about it and he did ask me to add a bit more, but I will do that tomorrow, as we were out most of today.

That was my first surprise – just how well that stuff worked!

My second surprise happened when I went to check on the truck and do a scan.

We have not been able to do much about clearing and organizing the garage since moving here. Among the things we will need to deal with are various long items stored in the rafters.

The yard cats like to go up into the rafters and use them to move around. There are shelves they climb to get up there, so I sometimes find things they’ve knocked down in the process.

This morning, I found a bundle of scrap molding and whatnot, on the ground beside the truck, along with a board. These had been in the rafters.

The first thing I did was check the truck for damage, but it seems it was missed completely!

After cleaning things up, I did the OBDII scan on the truck to make sure it was still just the sensor setting off the check engine light, then fired up the compressor to top up the tires. I was checking the tire pressures still when my daughter caught up to me, so she started topping up the tires that were a bit low.

I was telling her about finding the bundle that had been in the rafters next to the truck, when I realized.

We were being watched!

One of the more feral kitties was up there, on another bundle – one that did not look like it could be knocked down, thankfully! – watching us very closely. Thankfully, this is not one that panics and dashes awake, leaving a wake of destruction behind. We have others that do, and I worry that they will hurt themselves in the process! Not to mention, break things.

So that was another surprise.

Once we were done prepping the truck, my daughter and I headed out. Our first stop was the post office, where I knew we had some parcels waiting to be picked up. Two of them were not a surprise; my husband got me a new pair of boots, as the right foot on the ones I have now finally started splitting. It’s always my right foot that wrecks my shoes, first! He also picked up a siphon with a rather unique design, This is something we could use to drain some of the water in the ejector – both the stand pipe and the venturi pipe – if needed. Based on what I saw this morning, the level is going down, which means it might be draining slowly from below, but it’s hard to say for sure.

There was one large but very light box among the parcels that I wasn’t expecting – at least not so soon! The replacement hose for our washer came in. They expedited the parcel, even though I only paid for regular mail! That was really awesome of them!

There was another package that was a total surprise, though.

A whole bunch of cat collars! They have breakaway collars and are reflective. We will be able to get all sorts of cats collared up as they are fixed! Right now, Syndol is the only one that still has his collar, and his winter fur is so fluffy, you can’t even see it, even though it’s bright red. I have a bunch of collars ready to put on them. Only one of them is reflective, though, so I will likely use these, instead

I didn’t order these, by the way. There was nothing on the package to say who sent them to us. There were a couple of possibilities, and I can now send a great big thankyou to M for being so very thoughtful in sending these! M, you are awesome!

It’s so nice to have good surprises for a change, instead of all the “what is breaking down now??” surprises!

Meanwhile, my daughter and I ended up changing our plans and heading to the city today, and I ended up doing a smaller stock up trip. By the time we got back from the city, it was starting to get dark, so it was a much longer day than expected, too!

That, however, will be my next post…

The Re-Farmer