I’ve started on my 2025 garden analysis posts, which means I’ve got way too many tabs open as I review things to plan and organize my analysis.
Which is a good time for some Christmas music as a distraction! I’ve never heard this old cover of Good Kind Wenceslas before.
Bing sure had a smooth and unique voice.
Enjoy!
The Re-Farmer
My daughter has been working hard at organizing the cat free zone, aka: the living room, as it will be pretty much the only part of the house we’ll be doing any decorating and celebrating in. It’s where I’ve had saved seed set out to dry before processing them, and today I took them all down to my basement work area (another cat free zone) to process.
Most of the processing involved gently rubbing the pods and tufts between my hands to separate the seeds out, then very carefully blowing away the chaff. Some of the plant matter was heavier than the seeds, but I don’t mind a bit of chaff in there. The blue plastic bottoms from distilled water jugs I cut to use as protective collars in the garden came in handy. The divided bottoms and curled sides did a good job of holding the seeds, so most of the chaff could be blown away.
In the first photo above, bottom left, are the memorial aster seeds I was able to collect. Top left corner are the Jebousek lettuce seeds. Top middle are Uzbek Golden carrot seeds, and the top right are mixed red and yellow bulb onion seeds.
The tray in the middle has the purple asparagus seed berries I’d collected. Those had to be done a bit differently. Some of the berries were not completely dry, yet, but could still be opened up for their seeds. I just had to tear them open with my fingers.
Some of the seed berries were obviously damaged one way or another, and the seeds inside didn’t look too good. After getting as many of the seeds out as I could, I ended up using tweezers to select out the best, healthiest looking seeds, which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above. Since they weren’t all completely dry, once I got cleaned everything else up, I set the seeds back on the parchment paper and have left them out to finish curing. The new part basement, where this is set up in, is pretty cold as well as dry, so that will be good for the seeds.
Later on, I should test germinate some of these to see if they are even viable. I know asparagus has male and female plants, and this patch has both. Looking it up, it seems they can both self pollinate or cross pollinate. It would be nice we could start some from seed. Especially since the purple asparagus we planted this past spring did not come up.
Speaking of which, it’s that time of year when I do my garden analysis on how things went this past year, and how that affects our plans for next year. I’ll be doing a series of posts about that over the next while.
Until then, here is another bit of Christmas music, to help get into the mood for the season! Something much more traditional than yesterday’s selection.
The Re-Farmer
Good grief!
Yesterday, we had a high of -9C/16F. I am so glad I got my mother’s grocery shopping done then, because, wow, did temperatures drop!
This is what it was like before I headed out to give the outside cats food and warm water.
As I write this, it’s just turned 9:30, so it’s been 2 hours. We’re at -20C/-4F, and the wind chill is now at -36C/-33F, so it actually feels colder now than it did earlier! Our expected high is supposed to reach -17C/1F, then we’re supposed to get warmer over the next couple of days.
Today is a good day to stay home.
And for the yard cats to stay in the shelters!
Kohl’s long fur may be getting matted, but it sure it good insulation. In the next couple of pictures, you can see the cats and kittens congregating around the heat lamps. The wall thermometer in the sun room was reading about -10C/14F, which would be a bit colder than the ambient temperature, due to where it’s located. The cats have their warm spots to hang out. In the last picture, you can see the isolation shelter crowd. The thermometer in there was covered, though, so I couldn’t see what it was reading.
With all the stuff going on, I completely forgot to do my usual posts for the start of Advent. We haven’t even dug out any Christmas decorations yet. I started crocheting this year’s hand made decorations but I might have to start doing that in the living room. The cats have stolen some of the pieces. I found one, this morning, but there’s another that’s still missing.
So, to try and get into the Christmas spirit, here’s a bluesy version of We Three Kings for you to enjoy!
The Re-Farmer
Freezing fog rolled in last night, making for a gorgeous morning!
It didn’t go away.
My daughter and I headed into the city pretty much as soon as I was done the morning rounds. The roads were good and the visibility was okay, so long as no one tried to pass anyone. We made a quick stop at a gas station in my mother’s town to pick up drinks, and I sent an update to a road conditions group I’m on. When a was able to check it later on, people driving a highway almost parallel to the one we were on described several times when there were people trying to pass others in the fog and almost causing accidents! That highway is notorious for dangerous drivers.
Once in the city, our first stop was the computer place to drop off my tower. I told them, no hurry, for budgetary reasons. We talked a bit and I got an idea on what things might cost, depending on what he finds. The prices were quite reasonable, though if it’s a worst case scenario, replacing the valves on the truck tires will have to wait a month. In talking budget, I mentioned the various expenses that crop up, especially this time of year, and he totally understood. Turns out his engine blew on his own vehicle, recently! He’s got a loaner that needs to be returned today.
When I mentioned the valves on our tires, he immediately asked if the rims were aluminum. Why, yes. Yes, they are! He suggested getting steel ones, as soon as we can afford it. Which is funny, because the mechanic that checked my tires was saying much the same thing! 😄
With the computer, I’d things turn out to be badly damaged, we might need a new hard drive. He told me the cost for a 1T drive, which was very reasonable. Except, it turns out we have a spare! A recent care package we received included a hard drive, in case we found it useful. When I messaged my husband about the computer and the worst case scenario, he checked, and it’s a 1T hard drive.
Thank you, M! We may not need it, but what a serendipitous gift!
Once that was taken of, we went across the street to the Costco. We topped up on gas, which was 123.9 cents/litter. Higher than last time, but still 10 cents lower than everywhere else. After tanking up, I dashed in to get more eggs and cream. The girls are planning to make eggnog.
After that, we finally went for breakfast, though it was noon by then. We then went to a Sobeys I wanted to check out, which had a liquor store attached. I got stuff for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals, which will be all finger food this year. My daughter went to the liquor store and picked up what they would need for the eggnog, and for both Christmas and New Year imbibing.
Our last stop was supposed to be the Superstore, where I got the last of what we needed for our celebrating. We will need to pick up other stuff for our New Years fondue, but that will wait until after Christmas.
I was also looking for a gift for my mother. She always says, she has too much stuff, so I wanted to get her food gifts as treats. I had no luck, so I left my daughter to pack away the purchases (I even got $50 off with loyalty points!) while I walked over to a Walmart.
I took me so long to settle on something. What did you get for the person who hates everything?
I ended up getting a little gift set with tea, crackers and tiny jam jars, which is the sort of thing she eats when she takes her medications. I got a pretty cup for the tea. I also found a Hickory Farm set with beef sausage, cheese, crackers, and a little cleaver. Again, stuff much like what she likes to have. Just a bit fancier.
I got a gift bag for it all, with plans to drop it off at her place on the way home.
I was settling into the truck and about to call my mother to let her know I’d be dropping her gift off, but not staying, because of the fog, which was still just as dense, when I saw a message from my husband suggesting we bring home McDonald’s. The budget was getting slim by then (McRaunchies is not a cheap deal anymore!), plus burgers from the city would be cold and wet by the time we got home. I’m not sure why he didn’t suggest the new Dairy Queen that’s closer to home!
I called my mother, and my daughter started messaging her sister. Before I knew it, she’d sent me the funds to stop at the Greek restaurant in town.
Before all that was settled, though, we’d reached my mother’s place and I ran in to drop off her gift.
She had already forgotten I was coming.
When I gave her the bag, she asked what it was, and I told her it was her Christmas present. She promptly started telling my she didn’t need it, and we needed it more (even though she had no idea what “it” was).
Then she wanted me to sit and visit. I reminded her, I was just dropping the gift off, because its foggy out there, and it was going to get dark, soon. I made the mistake of mentioning my daughter was with me, to help look out for deer. She started going on about how she didn’t even come in to say hi…
I left, with her glaring daggers as me.
*sigh*
With supper arrangements made, we crossed to the next highway to go to town and order four meals to go. This place is so generous in their portion sizes, it’ll be enough to feed us for 2 days!
Unfortunately, by the time it was ready, it wS fully dark. Thankfully, the fog was not as dense, so I could use my brights at times. We only saw one deer along the way!
Though it felt far later, it was only past 5 when we got home and unloaded. My daughter parked the truck while I distracted the outside cats by feeding them, while my other daughter put the shopping away.
It was a couple of hours late, so we went straight to cleaning that cats’ ears with mineral oil. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one cat. Grandma. Even when we started putting out wet cat food, she didn’t come out. I still haven’t seen her.
Unfortunately, with a senior cat, I can’t help but think she found a quiet place for her final nap. But where? My daughter even checked the basement. We can’t find her.
I’ll try looking in the basement myself, later on. I hope I’m wrong in my concern.
It’s been a while, and we’ve had our supper (the girls and I all ordered pickerel dinners, and I got a burger meal for my husband), but as I tap away, writing this post, I have eleven greasy cats on the bed behind me, most of whom are still grooming either their own ears, or the ears of a cat next to them! They all look so bedraggled. 😁
I really hope this treatment does the trick. Some of them still have such dirty ears, which means they still have active mites. At least some of them are noticeably better! Some were never bad at all. We’ve got at least 4 more days of this, though if we feel they still need more, we might switch to using aloe vera gel, which should also help with healing. We shall see.
Beyond that, I’m just glad we got this trip in and, hopefully, we won’t need to go anywhere until after Christmas!
The Re-Farmer
First, the cuteness!
I counted 35 this morning.
Of these ones, the two tuxedos on the left will watch as I pause a few feet away to take a picture, but as soon as I move closer, the start moving away.
Syndol, posing pretty in the middle, and the white and grey in front, LOVE attention. I can pick those two up and cuddle them, and they can’t get enough of it.
Hypotenose and the two orange cats are “touch and go”. I can touch them, but then they go! I am sometimes able to pick up the almost all orange cat and hold him for a bit, but he doesn’t like it and wants down quickly.
In other things…
I didn’t have anywhere to go today, which means I finally got some progress in the living room. Since it has been turned into a cat free zone, we’ve developed the terrible habit of shoving things in there, just to protect them from the cats. The girls even keep their laundry baskets in there, because when they have the baskets upstairs, cats will pee in them!
The girls and I have been taking turns doing a little bit and a little bit there, but we’ve not had a day when we can just focus on it. The problem is, we don’t know where else to put a lot of things. There’s a reason they’re in the cat free zone! However, we’ve decided we’ll be doing our Christmas celebrating in the living room this year, and that includes any decorating.
We’ve done no decorating at all. Normally, we’d have the tree up on the door in the dining room by the Feast of St Catherine’s (Nov. 27) and decorations around the dining room by now, but with the kittens we have now, even having the tree hanging against the door (which we don’t use), several feet off the ground, it not going to be enough.
For our non-traditional Wigilia feast on Christmas Eve, we’re planning to have all finger foods and do a Columbo marathon. For New Years, we’re planning on doing a fondue. It’s been ages since we’ve done fondue, and we have two pots. One is suitable for lower temperature fondue over a candle, like a cheese or chocolate fondue. The other has a gel fuel burner and a stainless steel pot for high temperature oil fondue, so we can cook meats or do tempura vegetables.
So however we arrange things in the living room, we need to make it so there is room for the food and fondue pots, all four of us can reach the food, and all of us can see the TV. We almost never use the TV – we’ve got an antenna and can pick up a few channels, or we can use the Roku, but we usually end up watching things on our computers, instead.
As I write this, my daughter has taken over and is now vacuuming, but I interrupted her. I checked out the bathroom window and saw a great pile of cats trying to squeeze into the cat bed under the platform. The thermometer in there is at 0C/32F, so it’s warmer that outside, but they’re enjoying the body heat. There is another cat bed inside the cage, but they aren’t using it, so I popped into the sun room to move it next to the bed they’re trying to all fit into. Most of the cats ran off while I was doing that, but not the one fluffy black kitten with the white blaze on his face. This one is more socialized, and learning to enjoy cuddles, so as I backed out from under the platform, I picked it up to hold.
And promptly got a wet hand.
He back end was wet and looking wrong, so I brought him inside. I held him while my daughter gloved up and did a thorough washing of his nether regions. As near as she can tell, he got a matt in his fur over his urethra that has fallen off, leaving a bald spot. She was able to clean other matted fur and found a small wound in the process. We put some antibiotic cream on it and put him back in the sun room, after drying him off as best we could.
If we didn’t already have so many cats in the house, we could have kept him inside to keep an eye on him, and called the rescue. The Cat Lady and her family, however, are in the middle of moving. Their house finally sold! I don’t expect to have any rescue related activity until next month, and certainly don’t want to send another sick cat their way! The vets keep finding all sorts of other problems when they get checked over.
Oh! I just got a message and some photos from the Cat Lady! One of her daughters has the flu, and she’s being cuddled by Muffin (who now has a new name) as she’s laying on the couch! So adorable!
She still won’t let the Cat Lady touch her, and will hiss and bite her, instead! She’s bonded with the Cat Lady’s husband, goes out to job sites, has strangers coming up to her in her fancy truck seat all the time with no issues, cuddles with the kids, but will NOT accept the Cat Lady, even after all these months!
Anyhow… I’ve been distracted!
Time for me to get back to work and help my daughter in the living room, and figure out what to do with the space!
Oh, that reminds me…
I finished setting up the “plug” for the air conditioning vent. My brother had cut a piece of 4″ Styrofoam for it, but it still needed to be trimmed. The vent pipe itself worked rather well to “cut” the edges as I pushed it in, then cleaned it up more.
Since my brother used a hole drill attachment to install the pipe, I had the round pieces from the wall, each with a pair of drill holes in them from when my brother first marked out where to make the opening. One of the holes is right in the centre. The circles fit perfectly inside the vent pipe. One of them is a piece of panelling from the inside. So once the foam was trimmed to fit in the vent, I used a small, round curtain rod that happened to be in the living room, to make a matching hole in the middle of the foam. I took a piece of doweling left over from when I made the outdoor kitchen model and flattened one side, then carved a recess in the middle. I looped some paracord around that, then strung the ends through the centre hole of the “ugly” disc, then threaded that through the foam. I used some double sided foam mounting tape to secure the disc of panelling onto the inside end of the foam, with the paracord threaded through the middle hole. The cord got knotted against the piece of panelling to hold both discs tight against the foam, then I made handle out of paracord ends. The whole thing fits perfectly into the vent pipe, and I can line the disc of panelling up with the wall behind it. I’m rather pleased with how it turned out!
When that was done, I checked on the luffa that was drying over the heat vent. It had started to get mold on the outside, before it got too dry for mold, but when I broke the outer skin off, I found the mold went straight through. No sponge, and no viable seeds.
Darn.
It just didn’t have a long enough time to grow!
Ah, well. We’ll be trying again in the future, after I get fresh seeds!
Now… time to go help my daughter!
The Re-Farmer
If you’re going to have someone invade your space while you’re in the bathroom, you can’t do better than David.
He loves that sink.
He fills that sink!
What a chill, laid back, precious boy!
Then there’s these guys.
By the time I’m done my morning rounds, the outside cats have finished eating and are settling into their favourite spots to hang out. The littles just love sitting on top of the board the heat bulb’s fixture is attached to! They don’t hang out under the bulb, which you’d think would be warmer. They like to be above it!
While doing my rounds, I did a bit of shoveling, but the snow is deep enough, we’re going to have to clear the driveway. Not because it’s too deep to get out, but because I don’t want it to accumulate too much the next time it snows.
We’re supposed to get more snow today – 97% chance of precipitation – and a high of -11C/12F this afternoon. The next two days are supposed to have highs of -16C/3F, which still isn’t too bad. It’s the wind that’s going to make it miserable. After that, we’re supposed to start going below -20C/-4F, or close to it, probably for the rest of the year – depending one which app I look at. Another tells me we’ll be around -10C/14F during the week around Christmas, which is about half what my desktop app tells me. Well within the 30 year average, either way, so not a major concern. It’s January and February that are typically the harshest. The AccuWeather website has long range forecasts all the way to March 16 and, according to them, January and February are going to be downright tropical, compared to the last few years! If they’re right, we’ll be warmer than -10C/14F for most of those two months!
I’m not counting on that. 😄
It’d be nice, though.
I was happy to see the road seems to be well plowed. I say “seems to be”, only because everything is so glaringly white, it’s blinding. We’ll have no problems getting out anywhere, if we need to.
With the Christmas and New Year’s holidays coming up, it changes when my husband’s disability payments come in. CPP Disability, which typically comes in just a couple business days before his private insurance payment, will be coming in on the 21st. Which means (weather willing) that’s when I’ll be making a trip to the city for what will not only be our last Christmas dinner shop, for the fresh things we won’t buy in advance (we don’t really buy gifts anymore), but it will be our first large shop for January.
I’m not looking forward to shopping so close to Christmas, but it does mean we will probably not need to do any sort of major trip again until next year.
We can go back to turtling into our shells again!
The Re-Farmer
… okay, it can stop now. I’m good.
😄
Actually, we’ve got it pretty good. A friend of ours is on the East coast, and they got hit with a major storm and no power. As I write this, they still don’t have electricity! Thankfully, they have a fire place to keep warm around, and are in an urban area, so they can drive to places that do have power, to recharge their devices, have a hot meal and stay warm!
We’ve been getting a gentle snowfall all day yesterday, and it’s continuing today. It is supposed to continue for the next three days, after which the temperatures are supposed to drop quite a bit. Nothing unusual for our region, but it’s going to be when we’ll get a good idea of whether or not the new roof will make a difference in how cold it gets upstairs. Looking at our 30 year records, on this date we reached a record high of 6C/43F in 1997 – and a record low of -36C/-33F in 2013!! So I’m quite content with our current -2C/28F.
The outside cats don’t seem to mind it, either!
Thanks to the cat lady’s donation of wet cat food for them, I’m still doling out a large tin of cat food, with lysine mixed in, twice a day. After I put the last and largest amount of it in the tray inside the cat house for the bitties, the bigger kittens are quite content to clean the bowl and spoon for me!
Yesterday, I counted 27, including the bitties. This morning, I “only” counted 23. I couldn’t see the bitty tuxedo in shadows, so I’ll just assume the head count was actually 24. 😁
As for the inside cats, Marlee is still doing very well. When the girls come in, she’ll go right over for pets. With one of my daughters, she really likes to hop up on the bed and start rolling around, showing us her belly.
Which had been shaved! When the cat lady trapped Marlee and was finally able to get a vet to look at her, one of the things they did was see if she need to be spayed. She had already been spayed, but had no tattoo, so along with getting other basic treatments, they gave her a tattoo. The cat lady didn’t mention they’d shaved her belly in the process, but there is a very distinct area of shorter fur still growing back. It’s a reminder of just how short the time has been, since she was rescued.
She is such a sweet little lady!
She still snarls at the other cats, though. Of course, she’s only been here less than a week, so that’s not much of a surprise!
In other things, the girls and I finally were able to do some decorating for Christmas. They’d hung the tree against the dining room door a while back, before everybody got sick. Since then, the only decorations on it where the berlingot decorations I’d hung up while the glue I’d hung while the tips dried.
Because of the cats, my daughter had to hang the tree pretty high against the door, which made adding the tree topper a bit of a challenge! 😄
Aside from the tree, we added lights and garlands along the walls and cabinets, up near the ceiling, where the cats can’t reach.
I think that’s about all we’ll do for decorating the house. It’s just too much of a pain to try and protect everything from the cats! As it is, during the night, they knocked one of the boxes of decorations onto the floor. My daughter found most of them and put them away, but I found an apple decoration somehow jammed into the toe of one of my snow boots this morning!
The girls and I also had a chance to talk about future plans. For me, it’s getting a chicken coop built and getting chickens as quickly as possible. They, on the other hand, keep trying to delay it until we can adopt out more cats. My daughter is the one that’s been paying most of the more recent vet bills, and we’ve had some very expensive cats. They’re just going on the assumption that if we get chickens, they’re all just going to get sick and we’ll have lots of vet bills. So that’s another objection they have.
When I was a kid, we had lots of chickens. At least 50, probably closer to 100, at any given time. Not once did we call a vet for them. If they died, they died. Very few of them ever got sick. Which is pretty amazing, considering my parents really didn’t make any extra effort to prevent it. We had more losses due to skunks than anything else. I keep forgetting. My daughters are essentially city girls.
One of the main reasons I want to have a mobile chicken coop that is suitable for our winters, rather than just a chicken tractor, is because I want to incorporate the chickens into prepping soil in our gardens for us. They would be excellent for eating up weed seeds, insects and other pests, while loosening the soil and fertilizing it at the same time. For that, I want to be able to move their coop to different locations, and have electric chicken fencing to keep them in place – and most predators out. My daughters, however, are concerned about things like coyotes, the cats, hawks, eagles and owls. So they are thinking of having a completely enclosed chicken yard. Which we would definitely have for the winter months.
So… I expect to be on my own when it comes to getting ready for chickens.
What they are really interested in getting started on is building our outdoor kitchen. My younger daughter and I spent quite a bit of time talking about it, while she sketched things out. We’ve worked out where we want to build it – basically, about where the shed with the collapsed roof is. If we can dismantle that and build it in the same spot, that would be great. Otherwise, right in front of it would be good, too. Among the things we need to consider is that it’s a space free of trees, and where the prevailing winds are. In that location, it’s wind from the south that we’d have to shelter from the most.
One wall will have a multi-function cooking area. We want to incorporate an oven, much like the earthen or cob ovens, where the fire gets built up inside, then the ashes removed for baking and roasting. There will be an area with a grill, and my daughter specifically wanted an area where we can incorporate a wok, both of which would have their own smaller fire areas under them. We will also incorporate a smoker, so smoke from the cob-style oven and under the wok will be directed into the smoker. We’ll just have to make sure we can allow the smoke to escape if we’re cooking, but not smoking anything.
The question is, what will we build all this out of? For the shelter itself, it will likely be a timber frame, and we’ve agreed that a metal roof, with the rafters and any other wood above treated against fire. We plan to incorporate stone a lot – we have so much of it! – but for the cooking area, we will probably hit a salvage yard for bricks. We wouldn’t be able to “harvest” our own stones for that, as what we have is porous and can absorb moisture; it has been known to explode when exposed to heat. It would be great to find fire bricks from a salvage yard, too, but that’s something I’d consider worth buying new. The cooking area would also basically make up one wall, but for the other sides, we’re thinking to have at least half-walls. Likely of stone – again, because we have so much of it!
We’ll need a lot of mortar.
For the top half of the walls, I’d like to have the option of switching between screens in the summer, and wall panels in the winter.
Along with the cooking area, we will have another wall with a work table from end to end. That can be mobile, along with any seating. We’re also going to include a sort of cut-out corner for an open fire pit, too. Something we can sit around and have a nice, sheltered, wiener roast. Our current fire pit is much enjoyed, but over the years, the trees have grown too large, and there are too many branches the sparks could potentially ignite. Winds from either the northwest or the southeast can be quite a problem, too. For that area, we will likely build a gazebo shelter that we can use for things like hanging garlic, or laying out potatoes to cure, and not have to worry about it getting rained on. We’ve used our 10×10 market tents for that, but we want a permanent structure.
Somewhere around the outdoor kitchen, my younger daughter also wants to built a forge for the blacksmithing she wants to do. We found some of my late fathers old blacksmithing tools while cleaning up around the pump shack, but what he used for a forge had been gutted, and no longer had the blower fan that had been in there. Who knows, though; perhaps my daughter can still find a way to use that old thing!
So we were able to hash out some plans and ideas. My daughter is now doing more research on blacksmithing and building a forge, while I’ve been doing more research on building a timber frame shelter, and different ideas for the cooking area. There are actually a few multi-function designs out there – some even incorporating a smoker – but of course there are none with all the stuff we have in mind. Which is fine. It’s the different ways to build them that interests me.
When we’ll actually be able to start building this is the question. We’ll need to start accumulating the materials. Once we know what materials we can find or acquire, we’ll be able to make final decisions on the construction and know which materials we’ll have to buy, as well.
I did find an entire playlist on YouTube with a guy building a timber frame “forest kitchen”, by himself. I’ll be spending some time watching those!
That’s one benefit of our long winters, when you can’t do much outside. It’s a good time for making plans and doing research!
The Re-Farmer
The last couple of days have been pretty good.
Bright and sunny, and not much wind chill. My husband was even up to going outside to feed the cats. I didn’t find out until today, that he did it in bare feet and with no coat! Yeah, he’s one of those people that wears shorts in the winter, but bare feet??? Yikes!
He’s been chastised thoroughly on that. He’s diabetic, and doesn’t feel his toes at the best of times!
Yesterday, I made a small shopping trip, giving my mother’s car a run in the process, to do the Walmart part of our shopping. Today, my younger daughter and I made it into the city and did a Costco trip – but not before swinging by the post office and picking up a very large, very light box for my husband. He ordered a whole bunch of plain, medium weight yarn, in bright colours, and plans to get back into knitting. :-)
I haven’t been up to doing Costco in a while, now. With the colder temperatures, we did that part first. No worries about the van baking in the sun. Even with insulated bags and ice packs, anything frozen would be starting to thaw, just from the trip home. This time of year, the insulated bags are as much to keep things from freezing, as they are keep them cold! Then we hit the international foods store where, among other things, I was able to get a free turkey with my points. :-) We’ve already got a turkey thawing out for Christmas, and we’re doing prime rib from our quarter beef pack for New Years, so it’s just there for when we want something other than beef. :-) My daughter had her own shopping list, too.
Which means that we have been able to do the bulk of our monthly shop for January, and without having to buy much meat at all, it meant we had the budget to do things like finally buy a set of pans to replace the ones we’ve got that, after getting the new glass topped oven, we discovered were no longer flat bottomed! :-D
I even was able to swing by a Staples and buy the cyan ink I needed for my printer. The ruddy thing simply stopped working when it ran out, even when I just wanted to print in black and white. In fact, it wouldn’t even do the automatic head cleaning anymore, so once I installed the ink and did a test print, there were all sorts of gaps in the blocks of colour, and there was black in the yellow! I did 5 test prints, and it was still really bad. I couldn’t do a sixth test print, though.
I’m now out of yellow, and almost out of magenta.
I know head cleaning uses up a lot of ink, but not that much!
*sigh*
So we still can’t use our printer. None of the places we usually shop at carries the ink I need, so that means another trip to Staples. It might even be worth it to make the trip tomorrow.
*sigh*
I don’t remember the last time I’ve gone shopping this close to Christmas!
We have always had pretty modest Christmases. For us, it’s about celebrating the birth of Christ together as a family. My husband’s sister was finally able to move back to this province and get a house in the city (she had to back out of buying a house here earlier in the year, when the province she was living in clamped down on their police state and no one was allowed in or out of the province. At least if you were Canadian) and she’s having a Christmas dinner. She knows my husband can’t manage that sort of thing anymore, so we’ll be doing a Skype call with them, instead. With how crazy things have been this year, we aren’t doing gifts at all. Not even hand made ones. Maybe we’ll do some for Three Kings Day, our last day of Christmas, instead.
We got the last things we needed for our Christmas and New Year’s dinners. Since we normally make pretty much everything from scratch, we are all excited about getting boxes of mixed frozen appetizers. Our once a year treat! :-D
It did make things challenging when it came time to unload, though. Most of the stuff was small enough, or flat enough, to fit, but then there was that turkey… :-D It was like playing Tetris with packages of meat to get it in there.
So, aside from a possible trip to get that ink (which might wait until after Christmas, but I’ll need to do it soon), we are DONE!
It feels good.
The Re-Farmer
While today has warmed up, this morning was a bitterly cold -26C/-15F!
The outside cats still had food in the kibble house, but it was warm water that they were really wanting! Yes, heated bowl ensures they have water to drink, but it isn’t as warm as the water I top it up with.
Agnoos popped outside with me, but was more than happy to join Tuxedo Mask in the sun room again when I went back inside!
Since Tuxedo Mask’s other eye as started to get leaky, both of them got drops this morning.
One of the things I made sure to do this morning was to unlock and open the gate for the FedEx driver with our Starlink equipment. With the current conditions, we can be pretty sure our vandal won’t suddenly show up.
As we waited, I got our tree hung up on the dining room door. At this point, it’s only got the star at the top, because it’s the most awkward thing to put on. I have caught several cats under it, stretching as tall as they can to reach the bottom of the tree, which is wrapped like a gift, complete with bow. They can’t reach it and, so far, none have tried to jump at it. We’ll add the lights next, leave it for a day, then the garlands, leave it for a day, and if the cats seem to be behaving and getting used to it being there, finally finish decorating it.
Still no delivery.
In the afternoon, while it was still light out, our prescription refills got delivered.
I decided to make pierogi – something I haven’t done in many years – and my younger daughter has been helping me prepare the filling. I’ve got my own preferred mix, and it’s pretty loaded with stuff. :-D That has filled most of the afternoon and into the evening.
Still no delivery.
Leaving my daughter finished the filling, I started on the dough. It’s at the resting stage now, and I just helped my daughter move the filling to the old kitchen to cool down faster. I’m taking a break to write this, and then I’ll go shred some cheese.
Still no delivery.
In theory, we could still expect them to show up within the next couple of hours, still, but it’s full dark right now, snowing and blowing. I’m keeping an eye on the garage cam live feed but, at this point, I would be very surprised if the delivery actually happens today. So far, my husband has not received any notifications about it. We shall see. I do hate leaving the gate open like that. Especially after dark. :-(
Well, it’s time to get things ready to continue making the pierogi. I started really late for such a big job, but I’ll be heading to my mother’s tomorrow. Since there is no spice cake left to bring over for her to try, I think I’ll bring some pierogi. :-)
Also…
Still no delivery.
The Re-Farmer
It’s been a looong day today!
At least I thought it was, until I finally sat down and looked at the time. It’s pitch black out, and I was expecting to see something close to 9pm, but nope. It was barely past 6.
I am looking forward to when the days start getting longer again!
Of course, the day started with feeding the critters. Tuxedo Mask and Agnoos’ water bowl was frozen over, and they were very happy to have a warm water top-up! Agnoos, however, wanted to go outside. Tuxedo Mask wasn’t going for the door, so I let Agnoos out for a bit. He immediately ran onto a pile of snow from shoveling paths, hunkered down and stared at me. :-D
He did eventually come back to join the others. :-D
Including Chadicous, trying to trip me, as usual.
After the critters were fed, I made a quick run to the post office; I had to wait long enough to give them a chance to sort through the new mail, but I also wanted to get there before they closed for lunch, because I really didn’t feel like going out again when they reopened at 2! My husband is expecting the paperwork from his insurance company that he has to fill out every year, to let them know that yup, he’s still broken. At least he no longer has to get a doctor to sign off on it anymore, once it was obvious his disability had become permanent. He just has to let them know that yes, he is still under a doctor’s care. Which is getting harder to do, since it’s all phone appointments now, and he hasn’t even been able to get his bloodwork done. A few times we’ve tried, he had to turn around and leave before he ever reached the reception desk, due to pain, because of the long line up caused by restrictions. When he finally was able to get to the desk, he turned out to be missing his health card and, even though they knew who he was, they couldn’t do his bloodwork. Mostly, though, he’s just been in too much pain to make the trip to the lab.
The paperwork from the insurance company wasn’t in, but we did have a few packages. One of them was a couple of small ceramic heaters for the girls to use in their “apartment” upstairs, which gets so incredibly cold in the winter. The heater we got for them a couple of years ago had given up the ghost. This time, instead of one heater they had to move from their bedroom at night, to their studio during the day, they’ll be able to have one for each room.
I got a lovely surprise package in the mail.
It was my prize for scoring so high on my firearms safety exam! A lovely hoodie, with a pouch style pocket in the front, and our instructor’s logos on the front and back.
I had to giggle at the sleeve, though! Too funny!
After I got home from the post office, I did the rest of my morning rounds. Mostly. It was so cold, I didn’t bother trying to switch out the memory card on the sign cam. The LED screen inside doesn’t work when it’s cold like this, so I would have no idea if the micro-disc card was seated properly, or if it wanted me to format it again. I can sometimes get it to work if I warm it up with my hands, but I really didn’t want to stand in the wind for that long. I did the gate cam, which doesn’t freeze up like the newer one, but the card kept erroring out. I think moisture got into it at some point, and the contacts are damaged, because it works again when I take the card out and re-seat it, pressing it in hard. This time, it just did NOT want to read that card! I finally got it working, but by then, my finger tips were dangerously cold. This is not something that can be done with gloves on.
Meanwhile, my younger brother’s dog had come over for a visit. It’s been a while, and I was happy to see him. The cats, however, were not at all happy with the big, shaggy beast that kept wanting to play!
It did give me an opportunity to get a photo of Cabbages, sitting above dog height. Her eye has cleared up nicely though, as you can see, it’s still leaking quite a bit. There is no sign of redness anymore.
I’m seeing the forecast for Sunday is now up to 2C/36F! The cats will really appreciate the warmth. Today is supposed to be the last chilly day, and then it’s supposed to stay above -10C/14F, for a week, and even when the temperatures start dropping again, they’re still expected to be above -20C/-4F. Even the expected lows aren’t going to be much different. The cats will like that. And so will we, when our Starlink system comes in. Apparently, it’s going to be delivered by FedEx tomorrow! It was originally supposed to come by mail. It would be too dangerous to try and access the roof right now, even if it’s just the edge of the much lower sun room roof, so we might have to wait a few days. This is a bad time of year for it to come in! Which is okay; saving a couple hundred dollars a month will be worth it – if it works! Since it’s hard to tell which satellite dish is for the primary account, and which is for the secondary, we decided we will simply suspend both accounts (there’s just a $25/month fee per account that way) while we make sure the Starlink is working. If it does, we’ll close both of our current accounts and return their routers. If it doesn’t, we’ll put back whichever of the dishes we take down (we should be able to use either of the existing supports for the Starlink dish) and reactivate the accounts.
With the running around this morning, it was a while before I could snag a daughter and do Tuxedo Mask’s eye. The sun room is chilly enough that his other eye has started to leak a bit! I’d gone into the sun room ahead of my daughter to snag Tuxedo Mask and found him in his spot under the heat bulb, looking out the window.
Agnoos was outside the window, looking back at him, his front paws on the glass! He saw me and started bobbing his head around, looking into the sun room. So I went and opened the inner door. As soon as he heard it, he came running. When I opened the outer door, he slithered under it and into the sun room before I could open it all the way!
I think Tuxedo Mask was quite happy to see his brother, and they both wanted all kinds of cuddles!
The only problem is their new habit of sitting on the board the heat bulb fixture is attached to and hanging down from. It’s a good thing we can see into there from the bathroom window, because I discovered it knocked off its support. I set it back up and secured it with a small Bungee cord, but in having to keep it well away from the fixture, it would still slide around when they jumped off. When I had the chance, I put pieces of rigid insulation we have from a cat condo we made with cardboard boxes, a couple of winters ago, to make walls around the bottom of the mini-greenhouse frame I’m using the hold the heat bulb. They won’t be able to see out the window from there anymore, but it’ll be warmer. I cut a piece of insulation into two, to put on the shelf that’s supporting the board the heat bulb is on, one on each side of the board, in such a way that they will stabilize the board and also give the cats more space to sit on and look out the window, while acting as a roof to help keep them a little bit warmer under there. Between that and the box nest, they’ll be nice and toasty, even as the temperatures drop.
My husband, meanwhile, cut holes in the sides of the boxes the packages came in, to give to the cats to play in. Which I did not appreciate, since I was in the middle of cleaning at the time. He dropped them in the space I had just opened up in front of where the Christmas tree will be hung! LOL
They were, however, perfect for the sun room.
The brothers were quick to explore one of them! :-D
My big job for the day was to get things ready for decorations. Normally, we would at least have the tree up by now, and have started decorating, but this year, the only thing we’ve got set up in the Advent wreath! I decided to shift some furniture around, after vacuuming the living room carpet. While moving smaller things aside, I got distracted by the cat scratcher. It’s just a post on a base. The post originally was wrapped in carpet, but when that got torn off, my husband got some sisal rope to wrap it in. It has since been re-wrapped a few times, but the cord keeps sliding to the bottom when the cats use it. Today, I decided to save our furniture a bit and fix it, using adhesive all over the post. That took a while, but I think it was worth it. It should no longer slide down! However, the adhesive needs 24 hours to cure, so I had to hide it away until tomorrow.
That distraction meant it was a while before I could finally start vacuuming – only to discover the beater brush on our new vacuum cleaner isn’t working! Everything else was working fine, though. I figure the belt broke, but would have to take it apart to see. I decided to just use it as it was and leave dismantling the base for another time. It meant having to run it back and forth a lot more often. With our 1970’s shag carpet, it wasn’t going to be a good cleaning at all, but I’d at least be able to get some of the cat hair off the top. LOL
Not only did this end up taking a lot longer than normal, but as soon as I started, my rotator cuff in my right shoulder decided to let me know it was injured. Except I haven’t injured it. I have no idea why it was hurting! So on top of having to take extra long to vacuum the carpet with (I’m assuming) a broken belt, but I had to do most of it using only the one arm.
Oh, and move furniture, too. Not much, mind you, but enough to make things even more “fun”.
The most frustrating thing was pausing half way through the vacuuming and using this opportunity to take out a power bar with an extremely long cord my husband got a while back. There are not enough outlets in this house, and the one that’s being used to light the aquarium greenhouse is the only one on that side of the living room, and has only one working plug. So for my husband to have a light on his desk, where he does his leather work, he had to use the only other available outlet, which is on the opposite wall from the aquarium greenhouse. He picked up one of those big power bars that has three rows of plugs, facing different directions, plus USB ports. It had a cord long enough to run behind the piano and the large aquarium greenhouse to the corner of the room, then behind the small aquarium greenhouse, a plant table, the TV and DVD shelf, to the outlet in the opposite corner.
It was very handy, until it stopped working.
Then it started working again.
Then it stopped working for good.
So today, I pulled out the cord, starting at the plug end by the TV, only to get hung up at the corner where the aquarium greenhouses are, fought with it for a while, eventually having to pull the cord through the cabinet the large aquarium sits on, before freeing it from whatever it was caught on in the corner and finally being able to pull it from the other side of the piano.
Which is when I made a discovery.
It was two power bars.
Yeah. I know. You’re not supposed to plug a power bar into a power bar.
The big one that I thought all that cord was attached to did have a longer than usual cord but, somewhere behind the piano, it was plugged into a regular sized power bar with a super long cord.
Once I got them both out, I tested them.
They both worked just fine.
What I think happened is that the cats stepped on the switch on the bar behind the piano, turning it off. So when we tested the outlet and it was working fine, we figured something had gone wrong with the power bar. We were confused when it suddenly started working again, and now I figure a cat must have stepped on the switch again, turning the smaller power bar on again, only to have them turn it off again later. With it working sporadically, we tucked it to one side, figuring maybe a cat had peed on it or something.
Nope. It most likely had just been turned off in a place I didn’t even know existed until I fought with the darn thing for nearly an hour.
So frustrating.
Anyhow.
While working on the living room, furniture got shifted so I could fit the extra chairs from the dining room and store the bins for our Christmas decorations out of the way. Then, when I had the chance, I put large cup hooks in strategic places along the walls the power bar cords had run along before, well above the floor, attached the big power bar to the wall above the work desk, then set up the one with the super long cord, running it from hook to hook behind the piano, aquariums, TV, etc. and plugged it in.
My husband can now have a light at his work desk again.
And you know what?
That thing is juuuust long enough that there is no need to use the big power bar.
Oh, sure, we won’t be able to plug in USB cables to charge phones, but that just means we can set the big power bar up somewhere else, if we want to.
No more power bar plugged into a power bar.
With all that finally done, I was able to prep the space in front of the dining room door, where we will be hanging the Christmas tree, flat against the door and high enough off the floor that the cats won’t get at it. That worked very well, last year!
By the time that was all done, I was completely wiped out. So was my younger daughter, who baked three double batches of bread and buns while I was doing this. My older daughter was working on her quick commissions. A couple of times a year, she opens a limited number of slots for relatively simple commissions, for a quick turnaround time at discounted rates, skipping the usual back and forth for details. She has a lot of repeat customers that wait for these to get digital art as gifts, so the slots fill up fast. Which means she has a whole list of commissions to get done in a very short time. She worked all day, but when she came down to start another pot of tea, she told me she had just realized she’d a mistake on a commission. Instead of being done for the day, she was going to have to go back to work.
Well, at least she’s warm while working, thanks to the heaters that arrived today. In the summer, she had to work at night because it was too hot for electronics during the day, but now it’s so cold up there, they both have had to bundle up in blankets at their desks, and the cold was even affecting her drawing hand.
Tomorrow, we should be able to set up the tree and start decorating for Christmas!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 