elections

Mystery babies! Plus, this and that

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Last night, my older daughter started hearing kittens outside, meowing loud enough for her to hear them over her headphones. So she went to see what was going on.

She found three mostly white kittens wandering around in the yard, crying. No mother in sight.

So she scooped them up and put them into the cat cage with Brussel.

Brussel was quite okay with the new additions.

What a good mama she is!

The image and video above were taken last night.

They were still there this morning, and my daughters kept an eye on them while I was away.

I admit, when I did my morning rounds, I was on the lookout for bodies. If there were more to the litter and they were outside during last night’s cold, they would not have made it. When I checked the thermometers, it was about -10C/14F inside the greenhouse and the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. Happily, I found nothing.

Brussel’s black and white kitten has been really working at climbing out of the cat cage and, this afternoon, he finally succeeded. One of the new babies discovered the opening under the door. So when I got back, there were two kittens I had to be really careful about not stepping on when I got home!

In the above slideshow, you can see the two most active kittens outside the cat cage. The last image in the series is the possible mother.

As of this evening’s feeding, there are now only two of the white kittens in the cat cage. It looks like Mamma has come for them.

Usually, the mamas bring their babies to the house when they are old enough to be weaned. They bring them here and basically leave them where the food is. This doesn’t typically start until late June, at the earliest, July or August. These babies are definitely NOT old enough to wean, so it’s strange that they should show up like this. The Cat Lady and her rescue have been updated. After last night, things should warm up enough for it to be safe to start trapping and hopefully getting more ladies spayed before we have more kittens!!!

As for me, I am totally exhausted. I went to my mother early, to be there for her doctor’s appointment. The confusion about her puffer was cleared up. She showed me the bottle she was talking about.

It was the spray for dry mouth.

She thought it was an inhaler.

I’m not going to get into all the stuff about her visit; it would just be too much. Suffice to say, this was note on of her good days, and she went off about my brother and how terrible he is, and even admitted that our vandal “was right”; she believes all the lies and slander he has said about my brother. It blows me away that she trusts the person that is the most abusive towards me, while treating the person who has given and sacrificed so much for her like crap.

On the plus side, the home care aid showed up while I was there. She was new to the schedule; it turns out the regular person was away today, so she was the substitute.

My mother recognized her. She provided home care for my late father. She even remembered him and the farm, and had the nicest things to say about him. I told her that, at the time, I was living in another province, but when I phoned my dad, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him and what excellent care he was getting. He was definitely a favourite of all the home care workers.

My mother is very, very different.

After the telephone medical appointment was done, I stayed long enough to get laundry going, then did some grocery shopping for her. She also had stuff to pick up at the pharmacy, which gave me a chance to talk to them about things discussed with the doctor this morning. After I got home, I called home care and left a message about relevant things they needed to know.

Speaking of medical appointments, my husband FINALLY has an appointment at the new pain clinic.

In June.

He doesn’t expect them to be able to do anything at all for him, though. After all these years, he’s gone though all the options and has given up on anyone being able to help him just control the pain, never mind improve.

On a less pleasant note… I hate being right sometimes.

Last night, as I predicted, Marx Carnage was installed as our new Prime Dictator. The media has been priming us for that result from the start. Yes, there were plenty of shenanigans. The election was called before ballots were even counted.

The ballots from the advance polls get counted after the regular polls. There were 7 million votes cast at the advance polls, but the election was called before they were counted. Video has surfaced of people taking the sealed ballot boxes out of their secure locations – one person was even seen rifling inside a ballot box – and taken to someone’s private home. Vote counting is not supposed to stop until it’s done, but they stopped at 9:30pm, after ballot boxes had been unsealed, then starting up again in the morning. Etc.

Then there was this.

This is a ballot from CPC Leader, Pierre Poilievre’s riding. Over 20 years of him serving that riding, there was never a ballot like this before, nor was there another like it anywhere in Canada. That’s 90 names running against him. He lost in his own riding because of it. Most of the people on there are listed as Independents. Most of them apparently didn’t even know their names were on the ballot. To be listed as an independent in this riding, it costs $1000, and only 50 signatures needed, per potential candidate. Now picture that process, 100 times, with 90 making it to the ballot. Somehow, Elections Canada didn’t question this. As the party leader, Poilievre can run in a bi-election elsewhere, but this seriously needs to be investigated. It won’t be, of course.

Dozens of ridings have results with less than 1% between the top two candidates. Normally, that would trigger an automatic recount. I doubt it will.

About the only good news is that the NDP lost so many seats, they lost official party status. Sellout Singh lost his riding and resigned.

The Liberals got a minority, but the Bloc, which is in Quebec only, got enough seats that they can form a de facto coalition with the Libs, just like the NDP did, and they will essentially get the majority government they were after. Another dictatorship.

There are a few things that can happen from here. The Libs already put out a report promising… er… predicting that people are going to be so desperate in a few years, they will be forced to resort to hunting, fishing and foraging on public land (people are already doing that), among other things. They plan to do things like tax the equity on people’s homes, along with their capital gains tax and layers of carbon taxes. They want to ban vehicles with combustion engines, and phase out the energy industry, phase out meat, etc. Basically, Canadians are about to see some very hard times.

I see a few possible options. Some have predicted that things will fall apart so fast, we’ll have another election within the year. I don’t think so. Another possibility is, Alberta will finally separate. Thanks to Quebec threatening to do this for decades, the process is actually easy. A referendum is held with a clear question, and a simple majority wins. So if AB holds a referendum and 50.1% votes in favour of separating, the results must legally be accepted. If they go, SK will soon follow. MB and BC won’t be far behind, though both have NDP premiers right now, so that will stall things.

If AB goes, Canada’s biggest cash cow is gone. Quebec will go bankrupt in no time at all, since they depend almost entirely on equalization payments to pay for their socialist paradise. The Western provinces and probably the territories will combine to form a new republic (this has been in the works for years, and there is already a draft constitution, among other groundwork). Without having the federal government and the Eastern provinces sabotaging everything, this would easily become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Just as Canada could have been already.

Or, the provinces could separate and join the US. Which I think is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but it would still be loads better than continuing under a corrupt Liberal government, and a system designed to favour one part of the country at the expense of another.

Well, we’ll see how it pans out.

For us, it’s doing more of the same; trying to be as self sufficient as possible, grow and produce our own food as much as possible. It’s something we’ve been working towards anyhow. It has just become more urgent to get there.

The Re-Farmer

Chilly

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Today is definitely working out to be a chilly day. Depending on what app I look at, we are at either 1C, 0C or -1C! (34F, 32F or 30F). We’re supposed to reach a high of 5C/41F by early evening, but that’s also when the high winds are supposed to hit us, too.

Yesterday’s high pain day did lead to a high pain night, and these fluctuating temperatures sure don’t help. Part of the problem is that a lot of my pain actually gets worse after I lie down. Particularly with my hips. Along with my prescription pain killers (which are working even less than the first ones my doctor tried me on), I had to get my husband to slather on the Tei Fu lotion before I could finally fall asleep. With the cool and overcast conditions we have now, I feel like I could crawl back into bed right now and sleep for another week.

*sigh*

While doing my morning rounds, I tried to get a picture of the littles in the cat house.

It’s through a window, zoomed in and cropped, so a pretty terrible picture, but you can at least see the two littles in there, in the cat bed under the ceramic heat bulb.

In the sun room, the little black and white kitten almost managed to climb all the way out of the cat cage! I managed to snag him for cuddles before he did, then distracted him with wet cat food pieces I’d put into their cat bed. Once he figures out he can get out on his own, it’ll be pretty hard to keep them in there! At that point, I’ll unblock the opening under the doorway, so they can get in and out freely. There is currently a stuffy in front of the opening, and the “door” is hanging down over it on the outside. I’ll set something to hold the door panel away from the opening.

With the cooler temperatures, we’ll be staying inside for the most part, but I really want to get the one garden bed with the sprouts covered. When I checked on it this morning, there were fresh signs of digging in it. Not in areas where sprouts are coming up, thankfully, but seeds are spread out pretty evenly in this bed, so any digging at all is potentially killing things off.

My goal for today is now to pot up the peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. I am thinking we may have to start using the portable greenhouse, as even with the lights, the basement set up is just not cutting it anymore. The thermometer in the greenhouse was at just below freezing when I checked it this morning.

In theory, we could put things in the portable greenhouse during the day, then bring them into the sun room overnight. We do have the platform and shelves. The problem is, it’s still set up for the cats to use. We could move things around, but I still think the cats would end up knocking things about, or even walking right over them. They don’t deliberately try to get at the pots. It’s more a matter of them getting from point A to point B, and just going through whatever is in their way at the time. We’ve got to figure something out, though.

But first, we’ve got to get the seedlings transplanted.

In other things, I remembered to book a telephone appointment for my mother with her doctor to go over the blood tests and Xrays results. I was surprised when the receptionist asked if I wanted to book the call for today, but that would have been way too short notice for my mother. So I booked it for tomorrow morning. I then called to let my mother know, but it went to machine. She might have been out voting. Today is election day, and they set a mobile poll up in her building for people like my mom, who can’t get to the regular polling station. We voted at the advance polls, already, just in case something came up today. Of course, we’re already hearing about all sorts of election shenanigans going on. Ballot boxes from the advance polls are supposed to be kept sealed at a secure location. Just this morning, I was watching a video someone took. The guy happened to go shopping at a store next to the polling station and surreptitiously recorded ballot boxes being loaded into personal vehicles. One guy had opened the ballot box and was rifling through it. The guy taking the recording ended up following the vehicle, and the boxes were taken to someone’s home. He even questioned the people doing in, but thinks they figured he might be recording. They claimed they were moving the boxes to a secure location, which was obviously not true.

Meanwhile, in BC, people working in remote locations are told they are not going to be able to vote. For these jobs, people get flown in to work for 2 weeks, then flown out for 1 week off. They come from all over the country to work these very high paying jobs in the energy sector. Normally, they would be bussed to the nearest town to vote on election day. It’s been done this way for many years. Only a couple of days ago, they were told that, because they didn’t live in that town, they wouldn’t be able to vote there.

A lot of people going to advance polls told of polling stations running out of ballots (which should never happen), and being given blank pieces of paper and told to write in the person they wanted to vote for. This morning, I watched an interview with a couple of seniors that had a mobile polling station, like at my mother’s building – but it came on Thursday (the advance polls closed on Monday night). They didn’t have ballots, and the “scrutineers” offered to write in the names of who they wanted to vote for, for them. The women even saw them “help” one of their neighbours vote, and this was someone with cognitive decline that they knew would not have had any idea who she was voting for. Another example of shenanigans was in the riding for Opposition and CPC leader, Pierre Poilievre. The ballots had 90 candidate names running against him! There are only 16 registered parties for the federal election, and most of those do not have enough candidates to be in all ridings. The candidates are listed in alphabetic order by surname, so Poilievre’s’ name would have been in the middle somewhere. All this is on top of the RCMP report that the CCP has been actively working to influence the election results (the guy the Libs installed as the new leader and, by default, the current PM, has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the CCP). The Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the Crown, and was chosen by the Liberal party) approved millions of dollars to the Libs not long ago, even though Parliament is shut down for the election, so there was no debate to approve it and no one knows what the money was for. Etc. We’ve got the most corrupt government in Canada’s history, and now what is obviously the most corrupted federal election in our history. The only thing we can do is hope enough people get out and vote, to make it too big to rig. It’s blatantly obvious, in spite of the government paid polls saying otherwise, that the Libs can’t win. If they do, Canada will fall apart; everyone knows it would not be a legitimate win. Alberta has been ready to separate for years. Thanks to Quebec threatening to separate for so many decades, this is one thing that is relatively simple. A referendum is held, and all that’s needed is a simple majority. If AB goes, SK will soon follow. BC and MB would, too, except both currently have NDP leaders, and they are hand in glove with the Libs, so as much as the population would want to, the leadership is unlikely to actually act on behalf of their own citizens. Unlike other parties, there’s no real separation between provincial NDP and federal NDP. Even Ontario is talking referendum. Northern ON is getting very tired of being screwed over by more populous southern regions.

Personally, I am going to ignore the media for the day as much as possible, and not check in until evening. With our first past the post system, the election will be decided by the East well before the polls close in the West. Another frustration. Canada needs something like the US Electoral College. It’s one thing to vote for your local representative. Is should be something else to vote for the PM. Right now, leader of whatever party gets the most elected MPs because leader by default. No one votes for the PM in Canada. We currently have 343 ridings, so what we really have is 343 independent elections, all on the same day. I fully expect that the Conservatives will win by a landslide, but that Marx Carnage will somehow get reinstalled as PM anyhow. Lord knows, the media has been priming us for a Liberal “win” for weeks now. The psychological manipulation and behavioural modification has been out in full force. What gets me is that it’s so blatant, and so few people care. They seem quite happy to be manipulated.

Well, what happens, happens. We’ll figure it out when the time comes.

I’m going to go tend to my seedlings now.

The Re-Farmer

I got to pet her!!!

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Nosencrantz has started to regularly show up when I do the morning feeding. We don’t see her in the evenings, though.

This morning, not only did she show up, but when I was putting food in the kibble bowl under the shrine, she started to go for it without waiting for me to leave.

When I reached out, she sniffed my finger – and then allowed me to pet her! Tentatively, at first, but then she actually came closer to enjoy more than my just barely touching her.

She was still nervous, though, and wanted to eat, so I let her be. When I was done my rounds and doing stuff around the house and south yards, she was nowhere to be seen.

At least she’s coming back regularly for food in the mornings.

Now, if only we start seeing Marlee and Butterscotch again!

Not only was I able to pet Nosencrantz today, I was able to catch one of the kittens from the litter of 8 that is still really small. The only reason I was able to catch it was because it was on the cat house roof and three of the bigger cats were milling around, vying for attention, preventing it from running off. It hissed a little when I picked it up, and made a half hearted attempt to bite me when my hand got close to it’s mouth, but then it settled down and stared at my face while I skritched its ears and pet it. This kitten is one of the black ones with a little white patch on its chest, but is really, really fluffy and dense. In fact, its fur feels like it’s all undercoat!

I also saw two of the “new” kittens – the ones that Broccoli brought over not long ago. There’s a black and white one that I saw, then a fluffy white and black one. There’s a tortie that I saw last night, going into the sun room, but I did not see it this morning.

Among the other kittens, some seem to have gone missing. I haven’t seen the one eyed tuxedo kitten in a long time. The other tuxedo that had a messed up eye does seem to be around; we’re only guessing, because one of the tuxedos has an eye that looks… wrong. It doesn’t let us get close enough to get a better look. I haven’t seen the smaller orange and white kitten in a long time, though one of my daughters says she has seen it. The bigger one, with grey mixed in with its orange fur, like Pinky, is not only still around, but I’ve been able to pet it a few times.

Pinky is among the adults we don’t see anymore. Likely moved on to find himself a harem somewhere. Rolando had been back for awhile, but is gone again. It’s really hard to know how many cats we actually have out there. Some mornings, I’ve counted over 30. Today, I counted 26… I think. I’m pretty sure I didn’t double count, but it’s always possible there are kittens hiding under the cat house that I just don’t see to count, too. I make sure to put a bit of kibble at the openings they use, so they can eat without having to be around so many other older, more active, sometimes aggressive, cats. There’s one mama, the white one with black spots, that tends to be aggressive. With the adults, she usually just growls at them, but with the kittens, she will actually attack them! I don’t know what’s going on with her.

Still, we are making progress with the socializing. I wasn’t able to check with the black fluffy one, but so far, all the ones that have accepted attention are… Yup. Male.

It’s awfully hard to keep the population down, when we can’t get near the females to get them spayed! Yeah, we can do the males, but if we don’t do the females, it won’t make much difference.

Meanwhile…

This inside kittens are just loving the new bed! The fact that it’s so tiny seems to be a bonus for them at this stage. We have another larger cat bed that was donated to us, but none of the cats seem to like it. After washing, the stuffing got all lumpy and won’t go back, which is likely the reason. When the adult cats wouldn’t use it, I brought it into my room after washing it, and the kittens don’t use it, either. But, my goodness, do they like this one!

Today is working out to be a blustery day, and we’ve already reached our high of 18C/64F. We are supposed to get heavy rain soon, so that writes off working on the trellis bed or prepping logs, cutting them to side and bringing them over for the second bed. The down side of having only an electric chain saw! Tomorrow is supposed to be a better day, but I’ll be back in the city to do the first Costco shop.

Oh, to have a van again, and not have to make so many trips to the city!

The weekend also looks good, though, so we should be able to break out the extension cords and get cutting again.

Meanwhile, I’ll be making a trip into town soon. We have water jugs to refill, so I’ll take advantage of it to run a few errands at the same time. I’ll even time it so I can get to the post office when it reopens in the afternoon. I’m not expecting any packages but, if there are any, I don’t want to have to make a second trip.

Our province is having an election right now, and the advance polls are open. I should get that done, too! This year, I’m voting for a friend of mine that’s running in a new party. Our province has been lurching between the same two parties all my life, to the point that there’s really no difference between them anymore. Which is scary, considering one of them is trying to out communist the Communist Party (yes, we have an actual Communist Party on our ballots).

Ha! I paused while writing this to look up some stuff. The polling projections don’t even include all the parties running in them, so they’re useless. The CBC (our government owned propaganda media) has a “voting compass” survey that I just did. At the end of it, it actually did match me with the party I plan to vote for, but some of the questions – particularly the demographic questions – were definitely a problem. You could see how the intent was to frame a narrative of how “good guys” would be voting one way and “bad guys” would be voting anything else.

Well, hopefully, there will be a good turn out of legitimate votes – the level of fraud is much lower on the provincial level than at the federal level – and we’ll have a solid rejection of both of the parties that usually win.

We’re supposed to have a federal election coming up, too. I don’t see our Prime Dictator calling it anytime soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he found a way to prevent it from happening at all, over some new “emergency”. He certainly isn’t going to call it until he’s sure the results are going to be what he bought and paid for, and he’s so hated right now, that might be a while. He tried that in the middle of lockdowns, calling an early election in 2021 to get the majority he was shooting for. So the Libs formed a defacto coalition government with the NDP until 2025. Canada has fixed election dates. Federal elections are supposed to be on the third Monday of October, every 4 years after the previous election. Since T2 called an election in 2021, that makes the deadline for the next federal election 2025, instead of this year.

T2 should have resigned long ago, but the recent honouring of a guy that turned out to be actual Nazi in Parliament while the Ukrainian president was visiting should have been the final straw. Instead, the Speaker of the House was thrown under the bus and resigned, and the Liberals actually tried to have the incident removed from Hansard – the official record of all parliamentary proceedings – to make it like it never happened. The Liberals, who were so quick to call the Trucker Convoy and their supporters Nazis – our PM even calling a Jewish MP whose parents survived the holocaust a Nazi supporter – are now trying to make excuses for their own celebration of a Nazi from a division noted for the atrocities they committed. This was in the region my parents are from, that became part of the USSR after the war and is now part of the Ukraine. My parents saw and survived some of this stuff, so it hit close to home for me. Poland has started extradition proceedings now, too.

But I am getting distracted. Needless to say, though, I’m a lot more motivated to get out an vote. While we still can.

The Re-Farmer