… the heated water bowl is starting to freeze over.
A few of the outside cats were out, but I didn’t get that morning rush that I usually do, that’s for sure! They were far more interested in the fresh, relatively warm, water than the kibble. No kitties followed me while I switched out the memory cards on the trail cams!
We have been spoiled by a very mild winter, so far. (Yes, I know: winter doesn’t officially start for another week.) We had been hovering around freezing temperatures. Some days, the weather didn’t know if it was raining, snowing or fogging.
Last night, the temperatures dropped significantly. When doing my rounds this morning, we were at -27C/-16F with a humidex of -32C/-25F. That’s about a 15 – 20 degree C drop within half a day!
We’re supposed to warm up to -12C/10F (man, Fahrenheit is weird….) by this afternoon, but I made sure to plug in my mother’s car this morning. We’re supposed to have this one cold day, and then it’ll warm back up to above -10C/14F range again so I didn’t bother plugging in our van as well.
Of course, the one cold day we get is the day I’m taking my mother in for a medical appointment, and to do some much needed grocery shopping. Much needed for her, I mean. She keeps telling me the social workers can pick things up for her, and get paid while doing it, but she doesn’t seem to be taking advantage of this at all. She also has to pick up her prescriptions and hit the post office as well (she told me just last night, that the mail box outside the post office got stolen! I think she meant the incoming package drop off box, not the outgoing mail box). It’s going to be a long day for her. I’ll have to make sure to bring along our folding wagon again, to make bringing her stuff in easier, since her building is still locked down. She even asked me to be sure to meet her at the side door, instead of the main doors by the lobby, because of all the nosy people that might give her grief.
She had talked about moving to another building in town. I do hope she can get into there (or at least get on the waiting list). She really needs to get out of this place. It’s actually ideal for her in many ways, but the people are just toxic!
Oh, look! It’s warmed up to -24C/-11F and the humidex is -28C/-18F. At least that’s what the weather on my desktop says. My phone app says it’s warmed up to -23C/-9F, humidex -21C/-5F.
Either way, it’s trending up. By the time I’m up and about with my mother, it should be a few degrees warmer. That will make things easier on her.
My day in town, after dropping my daughter off at work, turned into an all day in town!
I had a 9:30 drop off time at the garage for my van. As soon as he saw me, the mechanic came over to let me know that several other vehicles already dropped off ahead of me. I’d even come early! No worries, though. I was planning to meet my daughter for lunch, anyhow.
I did have some confusion when I parked next to what I thought was my mother’s car, though, and then saw my mother’s car in a different spot. I kept looking at the license plate, then back and the car, wondering how my mother’s car got so dirty? And why was there damage at the back?
And how did it turn into a Chevy?
It turned out to be another generic little black car with a license plate only one digit off from my mother’s! :-D The car I’d pulled up next to really was my mother’s car! :-D
There were a couple of downsides to having several hours to myself, but no vehicle. With the shut down continuing (and extended once again, as of today, even though there have been zero new cases of the Wuhan virus in our province, which never got hit hard by it in the first place), there was no place to go just to sit for a while. No seating in restaurants or coffee shops available, and what stores are open are not open to simply browsing anymore. The other downside is that it rained most of the night and even the outdoor seating was wet.
Ah, well. I had a 5km goal in my Pokemon Go to meet, anyhow.
Which I hit rather handily.
One of the places I went through was a park near the lake, were I spotted this contented couple.
They were just fine ignoring me as I walked by. :-D
I also went to the beach.
Yes, there’s still some ice on the lake, some of which got blown into a corner against the main dock. The wind off the lake was freezing! That didn’t stop people from fishing off the dock, or families visiting the beach. There were plenty of joggers and dog walker, too. It’s the first day of a long weekend, and plenty of people were determined to enjoy it!
My daughter’s lunch turned out to be perfectly timed. It was nice and sunny by then, too, so we were able to eat comfortably on a picnic table not far from where she works. After lunch, I walked back to the garage and arrived moments after they’d finished with our van. I still had some errands to run that needed a vehicle, and by the time I was done, there was no point in driving all the way home, so I stayed in town until my daughter was done her shift.
It’s a good thing my to-do list for the day was kept flexible and tentative!
I did get one big job accomplished, and it was one I’d started last night.
We have had issues with our 20 gallon fish tank. Part of the problem is that it was next to the kitchen window. Sunlight tends to promote algae growth. The other problem seems to be our well water. While it’s great that we don’t need to deal with chlorine, when I did a 20% water change last spring, we had all sorts of problems show up, from a suddenly algae bloom, to pond snails appearing.
No, we don’t drink our well water from the tap anymore. I’m hoping, now that the sump pump is draining well away from the well again, these issues will resolve themselves!
We’d managed to get control of the algae a bit, though over the past year it killed off some fish and most of our plants. We’re down to one fish – an algae eater that doesn’t eat this type of algae! – and I’d fairly recently added a bunch of new plants. The snails, we were okay with, since they seemed to be helping keep the tank clean. There was some concern that they might take over the tank, but I think the fish keeps the snail population under control!
Then a few days ago, the water, which had been turning increasingly green, suddenly turned completely green and murky. We hadn’t even topped up the evaporated water or anything. The only thing that has been changing is the angle and amount of sunlight.
That poor little fish.
What we ended up doing was buying several 15L bottles of spring water and, last night, we completely emptied the tank and cleaned it out. I’d put some of the water in a gallon sized jar and stuck in the heater to warm it up before adding the plants and that poor little fish. The water was so murky, I couldn’t actually see the plants. I got them out by feel. At the same time, I removed sheets of algae growth that we couldn’t see through the water. !!!
The next several hours was spent emptying the tank, removing the substrate and decorations, scrubbing, rinsing and scalding everything we could – with no cleaners, since we didn’t want to accidentally poison the tank. I even kept what snails I could find. :-D
The cats were absolutely fascinated by the entire process.
In preparation for this, we decided on a new spot in the living room, found a old table in the storage shed, and set it up.
The cleaned out tank was then set up in its new location and filled with the bottled spring water and the appropriate additives.
The fish and plants, however, had to wait. The heater was set up in the cleaned tank, but it took quite a while to warm the water sufficiently. I wasn’t able to get the plants and fish in until morning.
We have an extra 15L bottle of the purchased spring water to top off the tank, instead of using our well water. Hopefully, this will solve the main problems. I don’t expect to never have algae problems again, but we shouldn’t get the crazy growth we had been!
Also, the cats are obsessed with all this. Susan is sitting on top of the big tank that we can’t use, since the part that broke on the filter during the move apparently is not available for purchase, even from the manufacturer. We found a way to cover the top solidly, and it has become a favorite place for the cats to hang out.
Now, they’ll have something else to watch from above!
:-D
Hopefully, the surviving plants will establish themselves and spread, like they are supposed to. I saw some pretty good root systems had started to develop. Once we get some good plant growth in there, we will get a few more fish again. :-)
This turned out to be a much bigger – and longer – job than I expected. But it’s finally done, and I think the fish is much happier in clean water again! :-D
With the warmer weather we’ve been having, I noticed something about the ice that had build up on the bird bath. The warmed concrete had melted the ice touching it, and a gap had formed.
I took advantage of that.
Instead of cutting a bowl into the ice for water, I was able to chop away the build up of ice, without damaging the bird bath itself.
Once the edges were clear, the middle part came out in very satisfying chunks!
I cleared enough that the brick could be used by the smaller birds to reach the water.
Oh, what a gorgeous day it has been, today! Warm enough that, after dropping my daughter off at work, I went and parked by the beach and actually went walking.
The lake and beach were very busy. There is an ice structure on the beach right now, and many people drive right up on the frozen sand to take pictures.
Why, I’m not sure, since the parking lot is, like, right there.
I swung by the beach this morning, after dropping my daughter off at work. The last time I was there, the water was free of ice.
It isn’t, anymore. It’s harder to tell in the photo above, but there is ice covering the water in the distance.
The lake narrows a bit in this area; enough that we can just see the far side (visible in the top and bottom photos). It extends a considerable distance to the north, and the ice is being blown south.
It was moving so fast, I could see the ice coming closer to the beach, even in the short time I was there. You can even see how much closer it came between this photo, and the one at the top, which were taken less than a minute apart.
For a lake as large as this one, it will take a long time for the ice to clear on all of it.
It’s been a chilly few days, with even a bit of snow during the night. Nothing like what they got in other parts of the country, that’s for sure! I actually wouldn’t mind more snow right now. Or rain. Instead, as of yesterday, we are now under a burn ban. It’s just too dry out there.
I had a bit of company while doing my rounds today. Just Rolando Moon this morning.
It’s funny that such an ornery cat acts so affectionate at times. She’s gotten better at letting me pick her up, but not for long. She either jumps down after a few moments, or starts biting at my fingers. Not full-on bites. Just enough to feel it. Then she jumps down. :-D
Welcome to a new year! May 2019 be a wonderful year for you, and I hope everyone stayed nice and warm while celebrating last night.
Or, if you’re old an boring, like me, sleeping. ;-)
It was certainly a bitter one last night, as some cities in Canada had their fireworks several hours early, so people could go home, out of the cold. At the time of this writing, we are at -26C, with a windchill of -37C.
The last few days, when going out in the morning to give the cats fresh food and warm water, I have been finding the water bowl in the sun room empty (except for a cat sitting in it, usually). Last night, the girls went out an extra time to make sure there was water for them.
So, a little while ago, while at my computer, I heard a strange thump outside.
I thought the cats might have knocked something over, but when I looked into the sun room, all the kittens were on the bench, sitting up, and looking in the same direction the sound came from.
Then I saw it.
The rain barrel had fallen over.
Now, I’d emptied the rain barrel, but then we got a whole bunch of rain, immediately followed by freezing temperatures, so when the barrel froze over, I just left it. I couldn’t break through the ice, and it was too heavy to push over.
I found it fallen over into the garden, and managed to roll it to one side, so it wasn’t blocking the path in.
So why did it fall?
Check out the base.
As the water began freezing, deeper in the barrel, the ice prevented it from expanding out, or sideways. So it expanded the only direction it could. Down.
That base used to be level, with only about an inch or two of the blue plastic encased in the yellow ring.
Kinda shows how freezing water can burst pipes, split rocks and crumble highway surfaces!
The Re-Farmer 