digging our way out

A new path, and more convoy talk

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The wind changed direction this afternoon, so I took advantage of it and headed outside to shovel the path to the compost ring that was completely filled in. Knowing we would be getting a delivery from the pharmacy this evening, I made sure to unlock the gate, first. The driver always calls when he’s close so we can unlock the gate, but I knew I would still be outside when he did.

Once I got the path to the compost ring clear, I continued on and cleared the path to the back door of the garage. It want much faster, since it doesn’t get blown in as much.

I had just reached the back door of the garage when I saw a car pulling up near the chain link fence.

To go to meet him, I had to take the path to the compost ring, across to the house, then down the sidewalk to the person gate he’d pulled up to.

I’ve been meaning to make a path from the back of the garage to the vehicle gate for a while. I wish I’d done it earlier! LOL

By the time I was done, it was getting dark. I had to adjust the lighting in this photo, just to see the new path! It now joined up with the path dug along the garden bed between the two gates, where there is a path to the driveway.

Normally, the inner yard would be cleared of snow enough for us to drive up to the house, with room towards the outhouse for turning, and we wouldn’t have needed all these little paths. Last year, we were able to keep it clear just with our little Spewie, but there is too much snow for the little thing, this year. We probably could have done it if the big snow blower was working. When I was a kid, my dad would use the old Farm Hand tractor to push snow into a pile about where the kibble house is now. It would reach most of the way between the house and the maples that our now outside the chain link fence, but used to be part of the inner yard back then. I remember one year, my siblings and I carved the pile of snow into three sets of stairs, with tunnels in between, leading to a two step platform at the top. The centre staircase had a wide, curved bottom step. We wanted to carve a throne at the top, but the snow pile wasn’t tall enough. :-D Gosh, that was fun!

This year, we’ve got snow more like what I remember as a kid.

Anyhow, without the heavier equipment, paths will have to do!

It was as I was near the garage door, and having to fling the snow ever higher, that I finally noticed just how deep it was.

I couldn’t quite stretch my arm out far enough to get a good angle, but the snow here is about hip height on me. Maybe a bit higher.

No, not all of where I was shoveling was that deep, though I wasn’t exactly shovelling right down to the ground in most of the paths, either.

After I cleared the new path, I kept on going, clearing the path in front of the garden bed, then scraping the sidewalk and clearing it wide enough for my husband’s walker. Which is really handy, when we have to use the wagon to haul stuff from the van to the house, like the sack of deer feed and other stuff I picked up today. Then I went ahead and cleared the cat paths, too, while there was still light out.

Clearing those paths is getting harder in places. The piles of snow from all the shoveling are getting high enough that the new snow I’m shovelling slides back down if I don’t throw it far enough – or falls into another path if I throw it too far! LOL

The cats were very happy with the cleared paths. :-)

As I write this, I can see more snow blowing around in the live feed from the security camera. I’m glad I got it done when I did! It’s still rather warm out – only -8C/18F as I write this. We’re supposed to have a high of -18C/-0.4F tomorrow, then it’s supposed to warm up a little bit again, and stay there for the next week. Much nicer than the couple of days of deep freeze we got, when our mini-convoy headed out, and the big one passed through our province.

That’s one of the amazing things about the convoy for freedom. This is happening in Canada, in flippin’ January. A friend of mine in the city had gone out to cheer the convoy as it passed by. She estimated there were about 150 people, just around where she was. It was about -32C/-26F where she was, at the time. In places, the convoy is so long, it took 4 hours to go by, with people outside, cheering them on, the whole way!

As the main convoy makes its way from the Western provinces towards Ottawa, more mini-convoys from the Eastern provinces are starting to make their way out as well. They don’t have as far to go, so they started later, timed so everyone gets there on the 29th. I heard there were so many trucks from Newfoundland, they got a ferry out just to take the trucks across. I’ve also heard that one of the border crossings into Ontario had so many truckers from the US coming in to join the convoy, the line stretched back 70 miles!

Our mainstream media has been avoiding reporting on it as much as possible, but they can’t avoid it any more. Of course, they are misreporting it, completely. One of the things they’re doing is wildly underreporting how many trucks there are. It’s just a few trucks, according to them. Not very many. There is also the usual, predictable slanderous reporting. They’re portraying the truckers as “anti-vaxxers” (most of them are vaccinated, and if they’re coming in from the US, they’re allowed to cross only if fully vaccinated), of course. Today, they’ve been ramping up the disparaging portrayal. The truckers are white supremacists, right wing, extremists, racists, and homophobes. You know. All the tired old insults that get thrown out so much, the terms have lost all meaning. Then there is that truly Canadian insult that comes from the leftist media that gets trotted out every election, and is being trotted out now. The truckers are inspired by *gasp* “American style politics.” Apparently, being compared to Americans is supposed to be an insult. This time, one news station even suggested that the convoy is somehow inspired by the January 6/2021 protests in the US that the media continues to lie about. They are really pushing the idea that the truckers and their supporters are violent crazies. Oh, and another claim that is supposed to be an insult: the truckers are “anti-government”. Because if you don’t 100% agree with what the current government is doing, that can only mean you are “anti-government”.

It’s all BS of course. Unfortunately, too many people believe it, and it’s endangering lives. A number of trucks were found to have their pins pulled. In one incident, a trucker who was not part of the convoy, and did not agree with it, apparently deliberately rammed his own truck into a truck that was part of the convoy. It’s been portrayed by the media as an “accident”. With the way the media is whipping up hatred and division – while accusing the truckers in the convoy of spreading hatred and division – they may very well get people killed.

And our Prime Dictator? Apparently, he’s on vacation in Costa Rica right now, though I don’t know if that’s true.

Thankfully, we have independent media who reporting on the convoy with better accuracy and truthfulness. Best of all are all the people who are documenting it themselves and posting about it. Like this guy.

Language warning!

It’s absolutely amazing! Our Prime Dictator has actually managed to accomplish something useful, in spite of himself. He has united the country. Against him! I have never seen so many wildly diverse groups, completely united in their support for the convoy and the push to end all the mandates.

The guy who made the above video is just one of many supporters, and he can only cover so much. We are also seeing many First Nations groups stepping forward in support. FN peoples are notorious about not getting involved in anything that could be considered even remotely political, with good reason. I’d mentioned before that a group of Hutterites had planned to set up kitchens to feed the truckers. The police wouldn’t let them, apparently because the parking lot was too full, so they drove 2 1/2 hours to the next major city, ahead of the convoy, and set up there, determined to feed them all. The GoFundMe has, as of this writing, reached over $5.7 million. I can’t even estimate how many hundreds of people are even joining the convoy in their own vehicles, so it’s not just a convoy of long haul truckers, but of all sorts of vehicles, too. Then there are the people getting together to prepare meals in take-out containers to hand out to the truckers, people arranging for things like porta-potties along routes where public washrooms are few and far between, and on it goes.

Meanwhile, there is stuff like Facebook deleting groups supporting the convoy, all of Toronto’s traffic cams along the 401 not working, people posting their own videos on social media are finding there is no share button for some reason, and I’ve lost track of the number of people I know who have found themselves suddenly restricted from posting on social media, and not knowing why. For all that, there is still tonnes of stuff out there, for all to see, showing what’s actually happening, and how huge this whole thing is.

Our Prime Dictator has already tried to call in the military and RCMP to stop the convoy, and they refused. So far, publicly, he’s been vocal about framing the truckers as angry (duh!) and potentially dangerous people, chastising them and their supporters for being angry, saying we don’t want to be that way as Canadians. Pure gaslighting, of course. The only truckers he’s talked to is an organization that is heavily connected to the Liberal party, condemns the convoy, but does not actually represent the truckers at all.

It’s a remarkable thing to see happening, and I honestly don’t know how it’s going to turn out. What I do know is that it is going to affect all our lives, here in Canada.

The Re-Farmer

Update: I just had to include this video, too.

Digging our way out (and a Cabbages update)

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What a beautiful day today!

The weather app tells me it’s -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -36C/-33F right now, but it’s bright and sunny, and actually felt a lot warmer while we were out this morning.

While doing my rounds this morning, it was time to assess just how much the storm affected us. We got most of the snow during the day, then mostly high winds overnight.

The cats that shelter under the storage house were having issues! This path was cleared yesterday morning. One spot was mostly drifted over – you can see it further back – with a bit of space the cats could get through. The other was a steep, narrow drift they had problems jumping over!

So one of the first things I did after putting food out was shovel around the kibble house, digging out the metal water bowls in the process, and opening up their paths.

Then I went around the house with feed for the birds and deer, and startled a deer that was right next to the house, almost at the dining room window! I’ve never seen them go on the house side of where the lilacs and cherry trees are. Not even tracks.

Once the food and water was done, I made my way to the gate to unlock it.

Opening it took a fair bit of effort! Most of the driveway wasn’t bad. We could have left it and driven through the snow, just fine.

We would not have made it through the end of the driveway, though.

Once I got it open (and shovelled out the path to the gate cam), it was time to break out Spewie and start blowing some snow.

I cleared in front of the garage, first, which was a more difficult area. The wind swirls around there, so the snow was deeper, and the top more hard packed. I did eventually make it to the end of the driveway, though!

I didn’t try to go too close to the ground, though, as I didn’t want to be hitting gravel and rocks, so the snow is actually deeper than the furrow made by the snow blower by about 2 or 3 inches. More than that at the end, where the remains of a plow ridge is.

The plows had not gone by yet, but it looks like some farmer cleared a lane with their tractor. At first I thought it might have been done by a truck with a plow attachment I’ve been seeing in the trail cam files lately, but those treads are not from any pick up!

I had managed to do about 4 passes with little Spewie, all the way to the road, when it stop running. I’d tripped the power bar, where it’s plugged in, in the garage. While I was trudging to hit the switch, I could hear the reverse warning sound of heavy equipment, nearby.

It was the plow.

*sigh*

You can see how much I’d done on the left, where the snow is a bit lower. There was no way little Spewie could make it through that! So I had to shovel a lot of it away. Thankfully, being almost immediately after the plow went by, it was still loose and light. Once I got a fair bit of it shoveled, then I could redo the end with little Spewie.

It was still a bit much for that little machine, and one of my daughters widened the end of the driveway with a shovel while I continued working on the rest of the driveway. I didn’t stop to take any more photos, but I was able to clear enough that we will be able to back the van up to the little gate in the chain link fence to unload. The girls, meanwhile, finished shoveling out all the paths in the inner yard. The path to the compost pile was almost completely filled in!

By the time I was done, I was completely soaked from all the snow blown back onto me. My down filled coat is not as waterproof as it used to be, and my shoulders were soaked right through the layers I was wearing under it! I was wearing both a hat and cowl, which was bulky enough to hold my hood in place, so I didn’t have to close it up in front, obstructing my breathing. They were wet, all the way through, too. My glasses weren’t just frosted over. They were iced over! I was very happy to come inside and make a nice, big pot of tea to warm up with!

While all this was going on, I got some texts from the woman who will be helping us with the cats. She told me that she will be in town on Saturday, and can pass on some cat food for us. This will be much appreciated, as the store shelves have been quite empty, so we’re not as stocked up as we should be. She also expects to be able to start taking some of our cats in the next week or two, once they have finished adopting out their current batch!

She also asked about cabbages. I told her she seems to be getting a bit better, drinking water on her own again, but still not eating (at least not while I’m there to see it), so we are feeding her with a syringe. She said she should probably take Cabbages back with her when we meet on Saturday, so that they can get her to a vet right away. This is greatly appreciated, since we won’t be able to do that until the end of the month. She said she can’t make any promises, since we don’t know why she’s sick, which makes sense, of course.

So it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to Cabbages this weekend, and she will get the vet care she needs.

I do hope this works out for her, and I am very grateful that she offered to do this.

Which makes getting ourselves dug out just that much more important!

The Re-Farmer

On the right path

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While one daughter stayed indoors to do baking, another daughter and I went out to dig paths, before the temperature dropped too far.

The main path, from the house to the front of the garage, gets dug wide enough for my husband to get through with his walker, or we can haul things from the van with the wagon. In the outer yard, we also maintain paths to the meter and the burn barrel. We decided against going to the dump today, but I was at least able to do a burn while shoveling, so we don’t have those bags taking up space any more.

The area around the cat shelter and the kibble house got cleared earlier this morning, as I dug the non-heated water bowls out of the snow. This afternoon, we dug out the paths to the kibble tray under the shrine, and I even dug out the path from their kibble house to the corner of the storage house, where they get in and out of the space under it.

Paths to the feeding station and compost ring are cleared, as well as this path from the compost ring to the back door of the garage. You can sort of see the path to the outhouse, too.

I also made sure to shovel the front of the garage, so we can swing open the doors to where my mom’s car is parked on one side, and where the lawn mowers and little Spewie are stored on the other.

It would probably be faster if I took Spewie out to clear the paths, but I really don’t want to fight with so much extension cord. For the main paths, the snow has been so light and fluffy, it’s almost easier to just shovel, and I don’t mind the exercise! I really ought to bring the little snow blower out, though. We have yet to make a path to the fire pit, and it would be good to have a path around the entire house. Especially to where the septic tank is, just in case.

It’s one thing to clear paths we’ve already been keeping up on, but when the snow is knee high, it’s a bit much to be breaking entirely new paths! LOL Mind you, the snow is deeper than the snow blower is high, so maybe it’ll be easier to shovel it, after all.

I do wish we’d been able to take the big snow blower in to be fixed over the summer. It would be quite handy right now!

The Re-Farmer

Snow critters, and brief Ginger Bug update

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Yesterday was a recovery day for me, so some things waited until later, and the girls took care of others for me – like shoveling the snow boulders from the driveway clearing out from in front of the garage. :-D I’ve asked the renters how much we owe them for the awesome driveway clearing jobs, and was told to just forget out it! They are so sweet. It also snowed lightly for most of the day, so when I headed out this morning, I did some more shoveling.

But not here! At least, not yet. This is our feeding station, and you can see that the deer have dug into the snow to get at the sunflower seeds. We haven’t started buying deer feed yet, so the next time we pick up feed, I think we’ll get a couple of bags of deer feed, instead of the black oil seed we get over the summer months. The deer feed we get locally is basically just grain and sunflower seeds, though if we went into town, we could get feed that includes more stuff in it, including corn. The deer – and birds – seem to be happier with the simpler mix. The fact that it’s also cheaper is just bonus. ;-)

My husband was a sweetheart and had already given the cats food and water. He had used plain tap water, however, and with ice already in the bowls, by the time I came out, the surface was frozen over already, and the cats were licking ice, even though it was only -9C/16F I had started a kettle going before I left, however, just in case, so my husband was able to bring out a jug of water – half tap water and half boiling water – for me.

Since the water was still pretty hot, I didn’t knock the ice out of the bowls completely before topping them up. The cats were drinking it before I could finish pouring! I even added some to the bird bath. I’m not doing like I did in the past; chopping the ice out with a hatched and filling it with water. The basin is already cracked and I’m amazed it hold any water at all, anymore, though we do now keep a smaller metal basin in it, and that’s what I’m putting the warm water in.

When I came back later, there was even more of kitties, taking turns drinking!

They really do seem to appreciate the warm water.

With so much deep snow, my morning rounds are less extensive, though it now includes trekking to the corner of the property, by the new sign, to make sure it’s still there and undamaged, and switch out the memory card on the trail cam. This morning, I also worked on clearing some of the walking paths, including the one to the kibble tray under the shrine.

As anyone with glasses knows, working in these sorts of conditions means working mostly blind, as the lenses fog up and then freeze over. So I was mostly looking over my glasses, and not seeing a whole lot. Even so, I could see something… odd… near the base of the shrine. A strange dark patch in the snow.

This was not there when I topped their kibble up, last night!

Something has dug a new burrow under the shrine!

I don’t know what digging critter we’ve got around here that isn’t hibernating right now. I’ve seen a little skunk in the kibble house recently (we usually just see the one big one, these days), so maybe it was a skunk? I don’t know.

Making my way back to the kibble house, I spotted our newcomer. I’d seen only flashes of her yesterday. I’m happy she weathered the blizzard all right, wherever she was at the time.

Then, because I am a suck when it comes to the cats, after I shoveled all around the cats’ house, including opening up gaps so the cats can get under it, and a path to where they go under the laundry line platform, I dug the cat path to the storage house, which is what they are in, in the above photo.

Looking at the 5 day forecast, we are supposed to reach a high of -1C/30F tomorrow, with a bit of snow, then 2C/36F with rain and snow, the day after. Which means all the areas we are digging out should melt down to the ground, or close to it. It also means that when I drive into the city, early tomorrow morning, to the courthouse for Case Management in regards to our restraining order against our vandal, it’s going to be potentially dangerous driving. The van has good snow tires, though, so that should help, but I’m really not looking forward to the drive at all.

On the plus side, when I checked the trail cam files this morning, I saw the snow plow go by twice, so I know our gravel roads are completely cleared.

Oh, I just remembered a recent conversation I had with my brother, when we were scrambling to get things done before the snow came. Particularly the garden beds. I’d mentioned wanting to get some manure, when he brought up the manure pile that used to be behind the barn. I remember that pile. We used to have a pig pen beyond it, too. The pile is gone, and there is no evidence of the pig pen, with its shelter for the pigs in one corner, left. Not only that, but there are hollows in the area, where the ground has been dug deeper, that has had me wondering. I’d say they were made with a small front end loader, like what would fit on a small tractor or the Bobcat that was here. It’s all grown over now, so it’s been like that for a long while, but… it looks like our vandal even stole the manure pile! Probably for his own fields or garden, but… who steals manure??? Of course, we don’t actually know who took it, when or why, but there’s no one else that would have done it.

On a completely different topic, we finally got to try our first Ginger Bug Pop last night! It took a week to fully ferment, in our fairly chilly dining room. We all gave it a try, and all of us found it quite tasty. It definitely worked, though I found it really sweet. I haven’t been able to get a good photo of it, yet, but I’ll make a separate post about it when I finally do.

The Re-Farmer

Cleared!

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Oh, it was so nice to see how the driveway looked in daylight!

There is more than enough room to back out of the garage and turn around – and even room for other cars to pull in and park. So awesome!

Though we do still have a bit of clearing to do in front of the garage. It’s just a small job, now!

This picture is taken from the road. Even the cats are loving the lovely, snow free driveway!

The road has been partially plowed. It looks like someone went through with a plow attachment on their truck or something similar. When the municipal plows come through, the clear from ditch to ditch, and there’s room enough for 2 vehicles to pass each other.

Notice the pole of snow pushed into the ditch? Because he cleared so far on that side of the driveway, when the plow does go by, we won’t have a ridge running across the end of our driveway!

I was able to make my way to this fallen branch. You can see where it broke off, above. I was not able to move it. Not only is it really heavy, but it’s frozen to the ground!

While making my way to switch out memory cards on the trail cams, I cold see where the deer are passing through, too.

As expected, there wasn’t much on the trail cams. It was funny to see some of the files from the camera by the new sign. The snow covered the camera lens before the motion sensor covered it, so they were basically just out of focus snow.

Though there is more shoveling to do, especially in the inner yard, I think I’m going to have to leave it to the girls today. My body is definitely telling me I need to take a break! Time to pain killer up and go for a nap!

The Re-Farmer

Digging out

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Oh, man, I am so tired.

Today, we started digging out from yesterday’s blizzard.

We didn’t finish, but progress was made.

My husband was a sweetheart and did the cats’ food and water this morning. He shouldn’t have, but did have to dig his way to the kibble house and uncover a couple of water bowls. He slogged his way to the kibble tray under the shrine.

Knowing him, he was probably wearing his sandals while he was out there! LOL

There is a set of stairs to the main entry over under that snow. Good thing we are using the sun room doors! The cat path is pretty funny.

I shovelled my way to the stairs before I stopped, then slogged my way around the corner to grab the 100 ft extension cords, then went to the garage.

I am not standing in a drift, here. The snow is up to my knees.

I shoveled in front of the garage enough to open the doors to where little Spewie is stored.

This little thing is not made for a job as big as this! The expeller was barely higher than the snow!

Seeing the photo, I am noticing the knob at the end of the handle to rotate the expeller. I wish I’d noticed it earlier. The bottom of my parka kept getting caught on it, and the knob end fell right off! I did eventually get a chance to look closer, and it just needed to be screwed back on.

At this point, I paused to add the second 100 ft extension cord.

As you can see, there is a lot of water under that snow! As light as little Spewie is, the wet made it very difficult to push it forward, and my footing was precarious.

Here, the snow was above my knees.

You can see in this photo, that the knob end had fallen off by this time.

Guess who finally reached the gate, only to discover they’d forgotten the key? LOL

At least the walk back would be much easier!

Along the way, I also paused to knock the snow and ice off the trail cam, though I didn’t switch out the memory cards, yet. I haven’t even tried to reach the one by the new sign – a sign, and camera, I’m sure is now plastered with a layer of snow and ice, too!

Once I got the key, I discovered another problem.

I couldn’t get it into the lock.

No, it was not because of ice.

There seems to be a piece of metal jammed in there!

Off hand, I’d think it was our vandal, but there were no tracks in the snow. The last time we opened the lock was Wednesday morning, 2 days ago. We did get a prescription delivery early that evening. My daughter met the driver at the gate, since I was up to my elbows in flour, but never had to unlock the gate.

Well, maybe we’ll see something in our trail cam, before it got covered with snow, when I switch the memory cards out tomorrow.

I had to cut the lock off to open the gate, and continue on to the road.

Once that first pass was made as far as the road, the rest went a bit easier. Going back and forth, I could only clear a few inches wider each time, because of how deep it was.

The road has not been plowed yet. Which means we’re going to have a ridge of snow across the end, soon! LOL

I cleared it just wide enough to drive though. Barely.

But I wasn’t able to finish in front of the garage. We can’t back the van out, yet, and where my mother’s car is, we can’t even open the doors, yet.

In one of the photos, you can see the path my daughters shoveled. They also shoveled paths to the burn barrel, the meter on the power pole, and even to the pump shack. There was concern that a cat was in the pump shack and was snowed in. We kept hearing plaintive meowing, but couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. There is a hole in the bottom of the pump shack door that smaller cats go in and out of that they cleared, just in case.

They also shoveled the sidewalk, around the kibble house, and to the kibble tray under the shrine. You can see that snow even got into the kibble house! A garden hoe turned out to be the perfect tool to clear that out. It was remarkably hard packed.

After they did the shoveling, they made supper and, by the time I came in, there was food and a fresh pot of hot tea waiting for me!

I really needed it, by then. While it was almost too warm for how bundled up I was, I was very wet. My boots were soaked and, even though I had a pair of those foot warmer things, my toes were starting to feel frozen. Plus, while clearing beyond the gate, the wind was blowing the snow all over me, so even my parka was wet by the time I was done. Of course, my double layer of pants were wet to my knees, too. We will have to finish tomorrow.

One of the last things the girls did before heading in was go around to some of the lilacs and knock off the snow, so they wouldn’t break under the weight. Some things, however, were already broken.

One large branch along the south fence line near the driveway was visible from the garage security camera, so I was expecting that one. It turned out to be the top of a dead tree. Another large piece of dead tree fell right on the barbed wire, but we haven’t been able to get at it, yet.

Nor have we been able to get at the large branch that fell in front of the outhouse. I’m sure there are other fallen branches around, but we haven’t even tried to make our way through the snow to check, yet.

Tomorrow, we will need to get back at it. At the very least, we need to clear enough to be able to back the van out of the garage and turn towards the road. We also need to clear enough of the yard that we have room to drive up to the house, with room to turn around.

This is one of those days were I really wish our vandal had returned the Bobcat, as my mother repeatedly requested. This could all have been finished, including the yard, in less than an hour with that thing. I was out there for more than three hours. I’m seriously considering contacting our renter and seeing if we can hire them to come over with their tractor! I’m sure we could find somewhere to squeeze that our of our budget.

Our forecast has changed, of course. We are no longer supposed to get snow tomorrow (Saturday). Sunday is supposed to be colder, but also without snow. Monday, however, it now says there will be “isolated flurries”, with rain and possibly another 5-10cm of snow.

Monday is when I have to drive into the city for Case Management about our restraining order.

*sigh*

At least I can be confident the roads will be plowed by then. When I first started working on our driveway, I could hear the reverse alarm of heavy equipment in the distance, so I think the main road may already be done.

For now, I’m going to have another giant mug of tea!

The Re-Farmer