This year, the bread is a sourdough loaf. We have a dry sausage and a small ham. The cheese this year is a brie. The olives are stuffed with cheese. There’s pink salt and honey mustard, and tiny jars with balsamic vinegar and truffle infused olive oil. The butter was whipped with parsley and a bit of the truffle infused olive oil. We also have two types of pickled eggs, one with beet juice. Then there’s all the little chocolate eggs all over.
I did have prosciutto as well, but at the last minute decided not to include it. I think we had enough in there.
After blessing, what needed to go in the fridge got put back in the fridge, and we will enjoy the contents for our Easter breakfast tomorrow.
Our basket has been put together and blessed, in preparation for tomorrow, when we enjoy the contents as part of our Easter celebrations.
Our traditional Easter baskets were one of my favourite things, when I was a kid. I loved our Easter celebrations more than Christmas – plus, I usually have my own tiny basket for blessing, too!
Everything in the basket has symbolic meaning. Along with the Polish traditional items, we’ve added a few of our own, over the years.
The most important part of the basket is the bread, which represents the Body of Christ. Many people use a paska, or babka, bread, made with saffron and raisins. We’ve made braided breads similar to challah, or purchased a rustic loaf of some kind. During blessings at church, I’ve seen people with nothing but a loaf of rye bread in their basket. It’s the one thing no Easter basket would be without! This year, we made a simple, overnight bread.
Of course, there are eggs, which represent resurrection and rebirth. They can be elaborately decorated pysanki, with the designs also having symbolic meaning, plain coloured or shelled. In our basket, we have shelled eggs that were pickled in the liquid from pickled beets, a soy sauce brine and turmeric. You can tell by the colours, which is which! We also have kraszanki (kra-shan-kee); eggs boiled with onion skins. Plus we added some little chocolate eggs.
The sausage represents God’s favour and generosity, while the ham represents great joy and abundance.
Salt (we used truffle salt this time, simply because we had some) represents prosperity, justice, and is a reminded that we are to be the “salt of the earth”.
Butter (I made a parsley butter this time) reminds us of the good will of Christ, which we should also hold towards all.
Cheese (we have a cheese ball, this time) represents moderation.
Other traditional items include horseradish (ours is still frozen in the ground), which represents the bitter Passion of the Christ. It is often shredded and mixed with beet juice to make ćwikla (chveek-la or chveek-wa) symbolizing the Blood of Christ, and bacon, representing God’s overabundant generosity and mercy.
This time, we have a little jar of apple cider vinegar, though we’ve used many other types of vinegar over the years. This represents the vinegar, or sour wine, that was given to Jesus just before he died on the cross, and represents judgement, purification, humility and redemption.
Some years, we also include olives and olive oil, both of which figured prominently in the culture of the time (still does, in some places). The olive represents peace, beauty, prosperity and the relationship between God and His people. In the Bible, the olive tree itself represented Israel and its people. I actually did get olives for the basket, but forgot about them when we put it together, but they will be included tomorrow.
Heading out to do my morning rounds, I was happy to see the cat with the messed up eye curled up in the cat bed under the heat lamp again. Unfortunately, the garbage can in there got knocked down again, and he didn’t like me picking it up and cleaning around him much, so he moved away. Not far, though. In fact, I had to push him aside to be able to open the doors to go outside!
Because he moves so slowly, I was able to pet his back a few times. Then, when I was finishing up and going through the sun room to go back inside, I found him like this.
I’m happy to see him cuddling with the tabby. He actually seemed to be shaking a bit, as if cold. Definitely not a well cat.
I did get a good look at his face today, though. I was concerned that both eyes were troublesome, but the other eye is a bright and clear golden colour. The messed up eye’s inner eyelids seem to be swollen, so I could only see part of it.
I counted 30 cats in the yard this morning. While feeding them on the cat house roof, I even got to pet one of the tuxedos! I had the usual cats pushing in for attention, and he seemed quite curious about the whole thing. I got to pet him a few times, and he didn’t seem to be sure what to make of it! I even got to pet Caramel a bit, though she’s one that turns around and starts batting at my hand – claws out! – even as she comes closer instead of running away. A bit like how Rolando Moon will come in for pets, then turn around and try to bite or claw the hand the pets her!
After all the outside stuff was done, I got a loaf of bread for our Easter basket baking. I’m trying a new recipe for overnight, no-knead bread. It’s pretty basic; flour, yeast and water, with optional salt and sugar (I used both salt and sugar). I mixed the dough up late last night, then left it the oven to proof overnight. I prewarmed the oven before putting it in, just enough to make it not-cold. This morning, it was all nice and fluffy. It got scraped down and shaped into a round loaf, which got baked in a parchment paper lined cast iron pan. I also had a pan with water in it, on the lower rack, to add steam to the oven. The recipe said to bake at 425F for 30 minutes, or until golden brown. I ended up adding an extra 15 minutes!
So that is now cooling in the cat free zone.
While tending the seed starts and turning on the lights this morning, I shifted things again. The San Marzano tomato seedlings are now in the mini-greenhouse frame at at the window, where they can get a breeze from the fan to help strengthen their stems.
As of last night, the very first of the short season peppers broke ground, as well as our very first Butterfly Flower! Once more seedlings have emerged, I’ll move them off the heat mat to the other side of the tank, then get the luffa, Crespo squash and drum gourds planted and set on the heat mat.
It also seems like we have finally gotten ahead of the game with our slow drainage problem. When we were finally able to flush properly, we’d get gurgling noises from the tub drain, but now even that has pretty much gone away. The regular use of the bio maintenance stuff is really making a difference. We’ll have to make sure to keep a good supply of the stuff on hand, so we don’t run out and suddenly can’t find it again. One thing we hadn’t done since the tank was cleared was use the Septo Bac we normally do. This stuff comes in powder form, in premeasured envelopes. The contents get flushed down the toilet once a week, to inoculate the tank with bacteria and enzymes to break things down, including hair, food and grease. It does nothing for the pipes, though. I’m not sure that we want to use both at the same time. I’m not sure what having too much bacteria in the septic tank would do to it! I’ll have to look that up.
Meanwhile, we are making sure to turn the septic pump on and leave it running for about 5 minutes, particularly when we are using a lot of water at a time, like doing laundry or taking showers. So far, everything is working out.
My mother called me last night and we talked a bit about the plumbing issues. She was wondering why we hadn’t called a plumber yet, and I had to explain that we have to wait until our taxes are processed and I get my return. Getting the pill switch done, I’m going to assume will be in the $300 range, including the labour. Our plumber has a flat rate for drain cleaning that is almost $300 for the work and 1 hour. If they have to replace parts or if it takes longer, that gets added on. So I’m guessing we’re looking at a minimum of $600 for both jobs. My mother’s response was to start talking about how she never had to worry about stuff like this, because she had “the boys” to take care of everything.
That doesn’t stop her from trying to tell me what to do!
I reminded her of how it took us a while to find a plumber that had the equipment to clear the floor drain in the old basement that was clogged with roots and sand. She thought I was talking about the sump pump reservoir, at first, but that’s a completely isolated system. I reminded her of back when we had a wringer washing machine, and she would drain the tub into the hole in the floor, and then she remembered where I was talking about. Then she asked just how there could be roots in there, so I reminded her of how a rain barrel and been left to overflow for most of a rainy summer, before we moved out here. By the time my brother found the damage it caused, the corner of the new part basement it was near had water seeping through and mold growing. Now we can see sand and roots coming from the weeping tile through the floor drain towards the septic tank.
That got my mother to talking about the problem of trees growing too close to the house, and in particular, the one in front of the kitchen window. Shortly after we moved in here, we talked to my brother about the need to get rid of that tree. My mother objected to getting rid of any trees, most of which she planted. She planted that one to shade the kitchen window, because it got so hot in the summer.
I’m not sure why she didn’t just get blinds or a shade.
Anyhow, it’s taken a few years of explaining how the branches are endangering the (now new) roof, and the roots are lifting the patio blocks, plus cracks are starting to show in the basement wall under the kitchen.
Well, suddenly she’s now telling me I should get rid of that tree. We should just cut it down – I have her permission! 😄 I told her, because this tree is so close to the house and has branches hanging over the roof (despite our attempts to cut them back a few times), this is something we need to hire someone for. Someone with all the equipment to do it safely and not damage the roof. We can see where people have cut this tree back a few times, on the yard side, which means the heaviest branches are on the house side. We can’t just cut the tree down from the base, because it will want to fall towards the house, not away from it.
At this point, my mother started giving me instructions on using ropes to keep it from falling towards the house, and so on. Which, if the tree were not so close to the house, might actually be possible. I tried to explain that to make sure the roof doesn’t get damaged, it needs to be taken down in pieces.
That’s when she started telling me that my brother can take care of it!
I said no. Not even my brother has the equipment needed to safely remove that tree, without damaging the roof! I tried to describe to her what the tree removal company did when we had them come in to clear trees from the power lines and the roof on the north side of the house, but then she lost interest and just told me, I knew what to do! She’d leave it in my hands.
Uhm… yeah… that’s kinda why we’re living here! 😄
It’s funny how she will still try to control what my brother and I do out here, even though she made a big deal about washing her hands of the place when she moved away some 10 years ago. I even remember, after we moved in and the property was still in her name, she told me she didn’t want to ever come back to the farm again and didn’t have to worry about it anymore, because we were here! That didn’t last long. 😄 I am so glad my brother is our “landlord” now! She can get so enraged because we’re doing things differently that she did. Especially when it comes to the gardening. If she isn’t angry, she’s mocking. She mocks me for “wasting” money by buying seeds, for example. She never bought seeds, ever! She always saved her own! Well. Except maybe carrots. Or lettuce. I’m not sure where she thought I would get seeds from when there was nothing we could collect them from, but the fact that we bought seeds apparently means we are stupid with money. BUT, we should also have a huge and perfect garden, just like she did, and never have to buy groceries again…
Talk about selective memory! 😄
Now that we’ve got a few years of gardening behind us, she seems to finally be backing off, but she still gives me a hard time for trying to grow things she didn’t grow, or trying new things. Selective memory again. I know my parents tried new crops, along with the staples, pretty regularly! So why is it bad if I do the same thing? Ultimately, it’s a control issue. She just can’t let go of the place, and the idyllic memories she’s created for herself.
Ah, well. It is what it is. I just wish she treated my brother better!
Well, I sure went off topic, there… 😄
Later today, we’ll go through our baskets and decide which one to use. Oh… that was another thing my mother brought up during her call. Blessing of the baskets. She’s getting hers ready today, too, and basket blessings at her church will be at noon tomorrow. She was wondering when it was in the town closer to us, but I have no idea. I told her, she made it clear we and our basket are not welcome, so we’re just doing it ourselves. Her response was to offer to lend us a “cute” small basket (this after I’ve already told her we have a whole collection of baskets in various sizes). Another thing she can’t let go of. To her, our basket is just too big, and that’s wrong. I’m not sure where she gets this from. When I was a kid, sure, our main basket wasn’t quite as big, but it was still much larger than what she uses now. Plus, we usually had several of them. My late brother and I used to have our very own little baskets (I even found those old baskets while cleaning up the house, and we still have the one that wasn’t broken!). I’ve seen other families bring much larger baskets for blessing, too. Why it even matters to her, I have no idea. Just another thing where she’s decided that how she does things is the only possible correct way to do it, and everyone else is stupid and wrong for doing differently.
I’m glad she wasn’t this bad when I was a kid. It would have destroyed any joy in Easter and our traditions that I had. I even told her flat out, after she threw in a few more unfortunate comments, that she has done more to drive people away from the church than anyone I know. I think it went completely over her head. Ah, well.
We will continue our joyful traditions – including traditions we added ourselves – and remember what it is we are celebrating, instead of worrying about impressing other people, or what they think of us!
And that will include a nice big basket with the loaf of bread baked this morning.
I think the shallow round basket with the flat bottom will fit the round loaf and other contents the best. Then we can go through my collection of hand embroidered cloths and decide which to use as a cover this year. 😊
Today is Palm Sunday. As we go into Holy Week, I hope you enjoy this song of praise.
As we enter Holy Week and the end of Lent, it is a good time to reflect on just how quickly things can change. Two thousand years ago, Jesus entered Jerusalem to the praise of those who recognized Him for who He really was. Yet, the leaders His presence threatened were able to have him arrested on false charges, and set him before a kangaroo court that broke their own laws. Even though they brought false witnesses against Him, they still could not get the verdict they wanted until He basically gave it to them, by saying outright, who He was, in terms they understood to mean exactly what they were intended to mean. Even then, they had to whip up a crowd that threatened to riot, if the emperor’s representative didn’t agree to execute someone he found to be innocent. All within the space of a few days.
Looking at what’s going on in the world today, it seems that some things really haven’t changed much.
I got a phone call from my brother this morning, letting me know he was going to our mother’s for Easter services. He had double checked that a particular restaurant would be open, so we arranged for me to meet them there.
I left early and was able to grab a table for us. He hadn’t told my mother that I would be there, so she was quite surprised. I’m not sure it was a good surprise – at least at first! 😄 Of course, she did eventually get around to asking why I didn’t go to church. Thankfully, my brother played interference and diverted her with some humour, because my answer would have been along the lines of “you. I don’t go to church because of you!” Which is partly true. I could go to church with her every Sunday, and it wouldn’t be good enough. Still, she was having one of her good days, so it was a pleasant visit overall. She even complimented me on my appearance. Okay, so it was really a backhanded insult, but I don’t think my mother even knows how to make a genuine compliment. 😄
It was good to get together, and especially to see my brother. I don’t see him anywhere near as much as I’d like to, and his wonderful wife even less (after my mother’s unending mistreatment of her, she no longer comes out to visit my mother – and I’m not sure my mother has even clued in to that. 😥)
As we were chatting, I mentioned the water in the path we’re having to walk through to get to the garage, and the that is starting to form. My brother had been wondering if we could simply go around it, but there’s just too much snow. On top of that, as the snow melts… well…
… when I left this morning, there was just the deeper part in the path. While doing my rounds this morning, I was breaking through ice. Still, I was able to walk through it and not get my feet wet. By this afternoon, the “lake” had grown, and it’s now deep enough to reach where the laces start on my boots and seep in. Unfortunately, my rubber boots have a big crack in them, so I have to get a new pair. It’s really hard to find rubber boots that will fit my battered, wide feet or my over-developed calves.
Minor inconveniences. I’m just happy to see the snow going away! Which should happen quickly. The weekly forecast has changed. We were supposed to slowly warm up today and over the next couple of days, still staying below 10C/50F, then jump up to 16 and 17C/61-63F Instead, we now have a high for today expected to reach 7C/45F, and highs of 15C/59F for the next three days! The average high for this time of year is about 8C/46F, though the record highs have reached as much as 20C/68F, while the record lows have reached down to -15C/5F.
I’ll take the 15C!
All in all, it’s working out to be a gorgeous day to celebrate Easter!
May today be a day of great joy and blessings for you and yours!
Our basket this year included a multi-grain bread, figs and port sausage, ham, olives stuffed with blue cheese, a wheel of brie, salt, mustard with horseradish, parsley butter, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and hard boiled eggs, all of which received the traditional blessing.
The outside cats are quite enjoying the warmer temperatures.
I snagged this picture through our bathroom window. The cats have knocked everything off that shelf, except for an organizer box in the corner that’s too heavy for them to casually push around.
They love this shelf!
They are also loving the paths to the electric meter and burn ring, now clear of snow.
Now that our angel of a neighbour cleared the driveway for us, that’s going to melt clear quickly, too. I just finished going through the trail cam files and took note of the time stamps. He showed up almost exactly an hour after I started clearing the end of the driveway.
This is how far I got in that hour. About 6 feet or so. Maybe 7. Granted, a lot of that time included having to use the ice scraper to break up the plow ridge before I could shovel it away, so it would have gone faster clearing ordinary snow. Still, it would probably have taken almost 2 more hours, just to clear up to the gate, where it was slightly deeper due to drifting. My daughter working at the other end with the little electric snow blower would not have been able to go much faster. It definitely would have taken us all day to get a path just wide enough to drive through, clear.
Which means we both would have been in a world of hurt, today – and we are set to drive to the city this afternoon!
Today is Holy Saturday, After I finish this, we’ll start assembling and blessing our baskets. We’re making a second one as a gift to bring with us this afternoon.
There was quite the crowd when I came out to do my rounds this morning!
I counted 23 altogether this morning. I did not see The Distinguished Guest this morning, but he was hanging around inside the sun room when I went to feed them last night. He was so hungry, I was actually able to pet him a bit. Then he ran outside, but when I put food in the kibble house trays, I was able to pet him briefly, again.
He has a very distinctive, low pitched meow, I’ve noticed!
This handsome boy followed me up the driveway and, as I was walking back, he kept flinging himself to the ground in front of me, every few steps. I’d pet him a bit, then he’d run ahead again and the process would be repeated!
He still has pieces of burr stuck on his back. I’d been able to get the worst of them out, but he won’t let me take out any more. His tail is still chock full of burrs, but as soon as I check his tail with my hands (his fur is so long, the burrs are mostly hidden from view), he runs off.
Then, as I was coming back from the sign cam, I found this!
There was actually five of them, but when I stopped to get out my phone and zoom in for a picture, Judgement, who was at the front, ran ahead and under my feet! I had to stop and pet each one of them before they would let me past on the path. 😄
Plans for today had changed again. I got a call from my mother last night, telling me I didn’t need to come over to help her with errands today. After I rescheduled from yesterday because of highway conditions, she decided to try doing her errands herself, using her walker. She got it all done, including a large grocery shopping trip that they delivered to her place later. That’s a lot of walking for someone in their 90’s with wrecked knees!! She sounded quite pleased with herself.
In the end, I still needed to go to town to get a few last things for our Easter baskets – we will be making an extra one this year, as a gift – before the predicted storm hits some time today. I also had some stuff I was going to give to my mother when I helped her with errands today. So I decided I would drop stuff off at her place first, then head to town for my errands.
I called and left a message telling her I was going to drop things off on my way to the other town, but when I got there, she was fully expecting me to stay for a long visit. She had a dessert ready for me – it had bananas in it, which I already told her is among the things I won’t eat because I gave up sugar and starchy foods for Lent – and water boiled for tea. Of course, she mocked me for not eating the banana dessert, telling me I should go to church, instead. As if there is any sort of equivalence. Not that it matters. When we lived in the city, we were going to church every Sunday, but that still wasn’t good enough for her. It wasn’t the “right” church. Whatever that means to her at any given moment! 😄
I did stay for a few minutes as she went through the things I brought for her. One of them was a photo I found (I honestly don’t know where it came from) of me, my mother and my sister. I gave it to her to replace the one she has on her wall of me and her, that has a big X scratched across my face that had to have been done by our vandal, though my mother never noticed it until I spotted it.
It should be interesting to see if she actually replaces the picture. When she saw the one I brought for her, she told me she thought she already had a copy.
Then she started listing things off that she wanted me to take, from the carboard box her groceries were delivered in, to the bucket of peelings for our compost she had in her fridge. I just told her, not today! For someone who complained for years about how their friends from the city kept bringing their unwanted junk (and sometimes pets!) to the farm, because “there’s so much room at the farm!”, it amazes me that she now does that to me. I’ve even pointed that out to her, but she just laughs, and keeps going it!
When I was finally on my way, I took a different route to town. The highway to my mother’s town was nice and clear, but this East/West road turned out to have quite a lot of ice and snow, which was melting, just to make it that much more slippery, along the way. Especially as I got closer to the next highway. That one, at least, was almost clear until I got to the turnoff to where I needed to go. That road had sheer ice on it, including the exit lane. Yikes!!
Once in town, everything was pretty clear. I ran my errands, including picking up the prescription refills that were scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. Since I was in town anyhow, I picked them up – along with some antihistamines. While walking around this morning, I was having a hard time breathing because my sinuses were completely blocked. It took me a while to clue in that, duh, it’s spring. I don’t know what I’m allergic to out there – it’s too early for pollen in our area – but something out there is causing me to react. It’s not as much of a problem when I’m indoors, but once I’m outside, it doesn’t take long for problems to start!
On my way home after finishing my errands, I was happy to see the provincial trunk road was mostly clear. After the other East/West roads I took, I was not sure what to expect.
Now that this trip is done, we should hopefully not need to go anywhere again until the weekend, and by then, any snow from the predicted storm we get should be cleared from the roads, even in the city. At least I hope so. The last few times we’ve been invited to their place, we ended up turning around and going home because of storms!
I need to start my next batch of seeds this week. I’m not quite sure how I’ll be managing that. We just have the one warming mat in the big aquarium greenhouse, and while the Spoon tomatoes are coming up, there isn’t a single pepper germinating yet. There’s the space beside the warming mat, but the eggplant there won’t germinate for a little while yet. The strawberries could handle being moved to the small aquarium, but we’ll also have to move out my daughter’s orchids. They are there not just to protect from cats, which is not needed anymore, but for the extra warmth. Being by the window in winter is too cold for them.
We’ll figure something out.
Until then, I’ll be getting the toilet paper tubes we’ve been saving and make them into little plant pots to start seeds in. We’ll be working on the seeds that need to be started 6-8 weeks before last frost this time.
I’m so glad we were able to block the living room off from that cats! It’s making all this a lot more stress free!
My daughter was sweet enough to take photos of Easter brunch from our basket for me to share.
She even used a couple of the Lavender Rose China we inherited from my late MIL as part of the display. She made it all look so pretty!
Unfortunately, my husband had an unusually bad pain day and was not able to join the girls. In fact, I don’t think he even ate at all until shortly before I got home. :-(
As for myself, I left early for my mom’s to make sure I had time to fill her gas tank first (gas prices have gone down a few pennies to 169.9 cents per litre). We had a short visit before walking across the street with her walker to her church. Having the church so close is one of the main reasons she chose to move to where she is! :-D It was an excellent service, and I quite appreciated the homily. After church, we headed out to my brother’s place.
There are two routes that I’m familiar with to get to their place. Normally, I’d take a more straightforward route on the highways, bypassing the city, to get to the town my brother lives in. My mother, however, insists on a route that takes us through a smaller city, where we have to cross an insanely narrow bridge over a major river. Which isn’t too much of a problem in my mother’s little car, but every time I take that bridge with our van, I feel like I’m either going to hit oncoming traffic, or scrape the guardrails! My mother is so insistent on taking the “right” route (which she thinks is a short cut), that when I got distracted and turned towards the city (my usual route) instead of the other direction to take a cross road to another highway, she actually got furious and started shouting at me for going the wrong way.
It took half a minute to circle around, and I was able to calm her down, but even for her it was a bit much to get so angry, so fast.
There turned out to be an irony about this.
Things were more pleasant as the drive continued. We got to the smaller city and drove through it to the bridge and…
It was closed.
Which… of course it would be. With the snow we’ve recently had, and the bridge being so narrow, now that I think about it, yeah, it would be. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn it was closed through most of the winter.
So we bypassed the bridge and got onto another highway towards the bigger city. However, in taking this route, we were passing through a more populated area, so the speed limits were all much lower. Which means that we probably ended up taking at least half an hour longer to get there than if we’d gone the route I almost took out of habit that she yelled at me for!
The irony was not lost on her!
When we realized the bridge was closed, I pulled over long enough to message my brother to let him know about the bridge, and that we would be a bit longer. As I was getting back on the road, I noticed it was just starting to snow.
The weather forecast for today was for either isolated flurries, or up to 6cm/2in of snow, depending on which app I looked at. Until then, the day had been completely clear. Within minutes, we were driving into ever heavier snowfall. Thankfully, it was warm enough that it melted as soon as it hit pavement, but visibility got quite poor in places.
When we finally got to the last leg of the journey, approaching a road I could have taken for a shorter route to my brother’s, we kept on going because it was blocked by a train! It was quite a while before we finally passed the end of the train, and I was actually starting to wonder if it would be clear of our next possible turn off when we got there. Thankfully, it was, so there were no more delays in getting to my brother’s.
The visit was absolutely fantastic. We had a fantastic time seeing each other, a wonderful dinner and, best of all, I got lots of baby snuggles!
So many baby snuggles.
Unfortunately, the snow did not lessen any and we left far earlier than we wanted to. It’s a good thing we did. While the roads were still good, they were very wet, and would have soon started to freeze. As it was, the further north we got, the snow was less, but I could see it starting to freeze over in places.
After dropping my mother off and continuing home, the highway was actually much better and almost dry, until I got about 5 or 10 minutes from home, when I drove into snow again, but it was just snowy enough to impact visibility a bit, not road conditions.
One thing we did see a lot of was deer! Not often. Just lost of them. On our way out, we passed a field that had maybe 20 deer scattered around it. On my way back, just as I was slowing down to turn off the highway, I saw what had to be at least 30 deer in a field. A group of at least 10 were just lying in the snow! I’ve seen some fairly large herds of deer in the area over the years, but this group was easily the most I’ve ever seen of white tail deer, all at once.
The girls were sweet enough to set aside portions from our basket for me, which was much appreciated by the time I got home.
I did notice that, by the time I got home, the kibble was all gone, so I topped that up before going in.
I saw very few outside cats this morning. As I was leaving, I startled a skunk, and it ran under the cat’s house. As I walked by, I could see it’s adorable, pointy little nose poking out, as it watched me leave. When I got back, there was another skunk – or maybe the same one – poking around the kibble house trays, trying to find something to eat.
Potato Beetle, meanwhile, remains in the sun room, and has his very own bowl of food that he doesn’t have to share with any other cats. Or skunks… birds… deer… When I got home, he actually made a “dash” for the door to get outside. He can’t dash very quickly right now, with his injured leg, so that wasn’t much of a problem.
What is more of a problem is the fact that the litter box remains completely unused. Which means he’s found a corner in the sun room somewhere that he’s using, instead. *sigh* It’s a good thing the sun room has a concrete floor!
Rolando Moon was following me around while I was doing my morning rounds, and enjoys running ahead, then rolling on the ground. I couldn’t resist sharing this picture, when I realized her tongue is sticking out!
What a silly kitty!
As I write this, we’re now heading towards 10pm. It’s still snowing a bit, and gotten cold enough for it to finally start accumulating. It’s not the first time we’ve had snow for Easter, of course, but usually that’s been when Easter was earlier in the month! Last night, we hit lows of -17C/1F, that I know of, and the sun room thermometer actually dipped below 0C/32F. Potato Beetle made use of the warming lamp and was just fine. Tonight, the low is supposed to be only -7C/19F, though the wind chill is supposed to be -14C/7F. Starting tomorrow, however, we’re supposed to reach highs above freezing, and stay there from now on, with lows barely dipping below freezing over the next few days. In a couple of days, we’re supposed to get a mix of rain and snow, but today’s snow should be our last blast of winter.
But then, we thought we were getting the last blasts of winter a couple of times now, only to have the forecast change, quite a lot, over and over! However, looking at our 30 year average, and record, highs and lows, I think we’ll be leveling off and warming up from now on.
Even with the snow, however, today was a fantastic Easter!
I hope you and yours also had an excellent day, filled with food, family and fun!
The Re-Farmer 