inside cats

In stitches, and major Cat Lady update

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

We have another day that is turning out to be warmer than predicted – again, by only a degree! We were supposed to reach a high of 1C/34F but, as I write this, we are at 2C/36F, and for this time of day, we could potentially warm up a bit more before cooling down for the night.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling very well this morning, and one of my daughters was sweet enough to do the morning outdoor chores for me. It seems we all had rough nights last night, though with the girls, they are having issues with the roof leak coming in at one of their windows. They ended up having to move their computers (they have a double sided desk that they share) and other electronics. Unfortunately, one of the only 2 outlets in that room happens to be under that window, and it’s the only one that takes 3 prong plugs, so they don’t have a lot of choice on where to set up. For my older daughter, that means a delay on her being able to work on commissions.

The temperature changes fluctuating above and below freezing have been absolutely brutal on my husband. He’s had to resort to “take as needed” medications he’s been able to avoid for months, just to be able to stand up more or less straight. The down side is that one of those medications causes drowsiness, and while a deeper sleep may seem like a good thing, it isn’t when one is also on a water pill.

Among my disturbances of the night was dealing with the mess Nosencrantz made. She has been using the litter to pee in just fine but, for some reason, she prefers to poop in my closet, near where we’ve got a cat bed set up in an old laundry basket; one of her favorite places. I’d already resorted to using carpet cleaning powder on the area and leaving it there instead of vacuuming it up (the replacement band for the new vacuum cleaner still hasn’t shown up, so we’re not able to properly vacuum right now, anyhow). It seemed to be working but, last night, I discovered her pooping right next to the powder.

*sigh*

So at 2 in the morning, I was cleaning it up, adding more carpet powder, and re-arranging things stored on the bottom of my closet to protect some of my longer clothing, like my summer dresses, that the cats were mucking about with. Then, since I was up anyhow and she was cooperative, I checked out Nosencrantz’s surgical site.

The stitches they use are supposed to dissolve, but for some reason, only with Nosencrantz, some of them aren’t. We could feel them when brushing a hand across her belly, but this time I took a closer look. One piece with a knot at the end that stuck out seemed to be loose, so I thought I could gently brush it out – only to see skin being tugged in another spot!

After getting a better look at it in daylight, I decided to call the vet about it. They asked for a photo for a technician to look at it, so I sent this one – at full resolution, so the tech could zoom right in.

My daughter’s fingers are pointing at the 3 spots of concern. On the right, that purple dot is the knot. It sticks out surprisingly far. In the middle, you can actually see a stitch joining two reddish spots. On the left is another slightly reddish area. We couldn’t actually see anything there, but we can feel something. That spot seems to be the other end of the thread.

I got a response from the vet very quickly. The technician said that sometimes, stitches just take longer to dissolve. It should be fine, but if it seems to be irritating her, we could make and appointment and they would remove it.

So it still should dissolve away. Nosencrantz seems utterly oblivious to it, except when we are checking it. The slight redness is a bit of a concern to me, but it isn’t getting infected or anything, and the knot doesn’t seem to be catching on anything.

We decided not to take her in, but having been assured that it will, indeed, dissolve, I did snip that bit in the middle, and was able to pull part of it out, from the knot.

It was almost an inch and a half long! That doesn’t look at all like it’s in the process of dissolving, either. :-/

The main thing is that there is no longer a piece sticking out, and no loop tugging her flesh together, which is likely the cause of the redness we could see.

We will keep monitoring the area, of course, but I think it should be fine, now. We could have done it earlier, but I didn’t want to remove only part of it, if the rest of it wasn’t going to dissolve away.

I also have some news that I’ve been sort of waiting until I had more information to share.

There have been some major changes in regards to the Cat Lady that has slowed down the adoption process for a while.

The Cat Lady has left the organization that was covering most of the vet bills to get the cats spayed, examined, vaccinated, etc. There had been an intake freeze with the clinic we use, because of the vet costs of so many sick cats, but now there is an organization wide intake freeze. This organization is completely by donation, so I can understand that needed to happen at times.

The Cat Lady was also having issues with them. There was, of course, the usual issues that seem to plague any organization; gossiping, internal politics, etc. The final straw, however, involved out of province adoptions.

They wanted to adopt Saffron and Nicco out of province.

It would have meant a THREE DAY van ride!

The cats get stressed out enough just with a ride to the vet in the city! She couldn’t let them inflict that on Saffron and Nicco. Since they are still with her, instead of a with fostering household, she simply quit her job and is hanging on to them longer.

This, after she just paid her vet $1800 for Cabbages’ vet bills!

She is now going independent, and Saffron and Nicco will be the first cats up for adoption when her new website goes live. Cabbages is the model on her flier, though Cabbages is not up for adoption. Her daughter is too attached! She already has 10 foster families lined up, has the support of the local shelter, and just worked things out with a vet, but she has to get things live quickly. She’s picking up another 10 or so cats from the area this week! In the middle of all this, she was also able to get another pair of cats settled into a new forever home. She has placed a priority on getting our cats adopted out, though, so as soon as she can, she will be taking on the next pair of cats for a trip to the vet, recovery time, then adoption.

Now, we could continue to work with the organization she left, as they do have a lot of resources she doesn’t, however I’m not keen on the possibility of cats being adopted out of province, so we are sticking with the Cat Lady! Her organization is going to be specific to our region, too, not the entire province.

This is a huge leap, but she’s got 13 years experience in animal rescue, and clearly cares deeply about the cats, and where they get adopted to. I think she will do fabulous.

Which brings me to our ongoing fundraiser. I’d set a goal of $1500 to surprise reimburse the Cat Lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, knowing it likely would be more than that. I’ll be keeping the goal at $1500, but anything above and beyond will still go to the Cat Lady, to help with her new cat rescue organization.

If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser, you can go to the fundraiser page though this link, or click on the button below.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Thank you!

The Re-Farmer

Warming up

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Here’s a switch. Instead of being colder than predicted, today we were warmer! Only a degree warmer than forecast, but that was enough to make quite a difference outside!

Inside, I had Turmeric making it difficult for me to make my bed.

She won.

Rolando Moon claimed the favourite sun room bed for herself. Since we’ve been leaving the doors propped slightly open, so the cats can get to the inside heated water bowl, I’ve noticed she’s in there quite a lot! She may not have the temperament to be an inside cat, but she does claim some of the luxuries when they are available. ;-)

The outside cats were very active this morning. Since I shoveled most of the snow off the cat room, we now regularly see several of them up there at the same time, when we first pop outside.

I counted about 14 of them this morning. While setting out the kibble, The Distinguished Guest came by, so I took advantage of the opportunity and copped a quick feel. Alas, I did find a tiny pair of nibs under that long fur.

Well, I guess we’ll have “long haired black cat” added to the genetic diversity of our yard cats!

I stayed out to get the burn barrel going again – it really did not want to stay lit!

With today’s warmth, it was getting a bit more dangerous, moving around. Formerly hard packed snow would collapse under my feet, or I’d find a layer of ice – the hard way – and came close to losing my footing.

Which meant that we had issues when we headed out to pick up the pizza’s my daughter ordered. The van just sank into the softened snow. We didn’t get stuck, at least!

The highways were nice and clear, though the visibility was down.

Where we live is a transition area between prairie and Boreal forest. We don’t have far to go before we leave the trees behind, and see this.

This is with the camera on my phone cleaning up the shot! It looked like there was fog, though it was actually snow. The white expanse and reflective light was actually a distraction in my peripheral vision. I kept thinking my daughter’s window was getting frosted over, but it was just … whiteness. She took some pictures to try and capture that for me. You can just see some trees dotting the horizon. These are most likely shelter belts around distant farmhouses.

Once in town, it was warmer, of course. That urban heat island effect had all sorts of things melting, and some of the streets were starting to flood. I was more concerned about dodging the fresh potholes. ’tis the season! We’re supposed to reach temperatures just above freezing, every day for more than a week. The streets and highways are going to get torn apart during the overnight freezes!

After we got home, I found this little bundle on my bed.

Nozencrantz was all curled up like a shrimp, snoozing right in the middle of my bed – with several other cats nearby! She may not be settled in enough to join the cuddle piles, but she’s at least allowing other cats near her more often. Even cats she normally hisses at. Progress!

Over the next few days, we’re going to have to keep a close eye on some things. Though I shoveled as much as I could from the sun room roof, I expect we’ll have water leaking in there. My daughters are having to deal with a leak that comes through one of their windows, even though they’ve cleared the snow off the low slope roof. We’ll have to watch in the old basement in particular, and if the sump pump goes off, make sure it is able to pump through that section of hose outside that was previously blocked. If water starts showing up on the concrete, we’ll have to make sure the big blower fan and the dehumidifier are up and running, to try and keep things dry. We’ll need to keep an eye on the new part basement, too, now that we know the weeping tile is likely full of silt and roots. :-( This will the the first winter since we’ve moved here, where any of this will be an issue.

We had to deal with some of this, during our first spring here in particular, but this winter, we’ve got a lot more snow. Without being able to clear snow from the yard so we could drive up to the door, we can also expect a lot more water in front of the outhouse. I remember having difficulty getting to the door at the back of the garage, because of a large pool of water that had formed. I recall seeing through the hole under the outhouse, that the pit was flooded out. That hole has been blocked off, now, but this year, a groundhog made a den under there. I hope it has a back door, because after clearing away the gravel it filled the pit with, the back of the outhouse is now blocked with wire mesh. It’s set up to keep things from digging in from the outside, though. I think a groundhog would be able to dig its way out from the inside. Assuming it comes out of hibernation before its den floods out. :-(

After about a week, the temperatures are supposed to drop to just below freezing again, through into April. If things go well, we will continue to have this slow, gentle melt, giving the ground time to thaw out and absorb the water, increasing our water table, rather than surface flooding and draining away to towards the lake. We need every drop of moisture to make up for last summer’s drought and heat waves. The local farms could certainly use a good year, after the last two disastrous ones. Me, I’ll be happy to not have to water all those far flung garden beds every day, twice a day! Though we will be shifting the garden beds in the north east corner close to the house, we’ll still need to be able to water the berry bushes that will be planted where we had the sweet corn and sunflower beds, last year.

So much work to do, once the snow it gone. :-) I’m really looking forward to it!

The Re-Farmer

Nosey!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

The transition of Butterscotch and Nosencrantz into indoor cats progresses.

Butterscotch has started to come out of her favorite corners of my office/bedroom more often, even when other cats are in the room. She turns her nose up at me, but if my husband or daughters come into the room, she will come out and, if there aren’t too many other cats around, come for pets. She still has shown zero interest in leaving the room!

Nosencrantz, on the other hand, is getting more adventurous and has started to explore on her own a bit. She particularly likes to visit my husband in his room, even when there are other cats sleeping on his hospital bed.

Just look at that nose!

She especially likes his little side table, and keeping him company while he is on his computer!

I’m really glad we were able to catch her and get her fixed when we did. Her female age-mates in the yard have been going into heat. Today, we saw Caramel entertaining all the boys in the yard. Including…

The Distinguished Guest.

Crud.

As a long haired black cat, it’s really hard to see well enough to identify gender. He did allow me to pet him while he was eating, and I was able to do a quick examination, and I found no nibs. Or anything else, for that matter. I figured we had either a female, or a neutered male, moving in with the yard cats.

He’s been fighting with Potato Beetle and Creamsicle Jr., which suggested males establishing status, but Rolando Moon and Butterscotch both did that, too. Rolando Moon was fixed when we were in the process of moving here, while Butterscotch remained intact until recently, so that particular status made no difference.

After seeing The Distinguished Guest entertaining Caramel, however, it seems we have an intact male added to the mix.

Except…

… some of our neutered males in the house have also tried to engage in such activities when the ladies went into heat. Heck, just today, I saw Beep Beep, whose belly is still growing its fur back from being spayed, trying to get it on with Turmeric. I’ve seen some of our other female cats engaging in similar behaviour, which is typically a sign that they will soon go into heat, but Beep Beep shouldn’t be doing that anymore! Which means, I guess, that it’s still possible The Distinguished Guest is just frustrating Caramel, but… the chances of that seem pretty low.

Nosencrantz, at least, gets to skip all that, and just be adorable.

So many kitties!

/ Re-Farmer / 9 Comments

Inside, outside, we are surrounded by adorableness.

Like this majestic beast.

Of all the cats, he likes this plant stand the most. He’s so fluffy, he fills it out the most, too!

What a handsome boy!

As for the new additions inside, we have some progress with Butterscotch!

Not only is she starting to come out more often for some cuddles, she actually stayed on the bed after her human of the moment left – while other cats were on the bed, too! No hissing or snarling to be heard, either.

Speaking of cuddles…

Here was have Beep Beep, dwarfed by Cheddar, her son of 3 years ago, snuggled by her daughter of 2 years ago, Turmeric, who is still slightly smaller than her mother, if heftier, and finally, Beep Beep’s grandson, David. Who is the same age as Cheddar.

I think Beep Beep and Butterscotch will both be very happy to be done with kittens. :-D

Before heading outside this morning, I popped into the bathroom, glanced out the window into the sun room…

…did a double take…

I couldn’t tell which cat it was while looking through the window but, from the photo, I’m thinking this is Caramel.

Before leaving the bathroom, I glanced through the window to see if he (she?) was still there.

Suddenly, there was more!

Also, that’s a different cat in the bowl. I recognize Agnoos and Potato Beetle. I half-think the one in the box might be Junk Pile, but she is really shy and doesn’t tend to go into the sun room, ever, so I’m likely wrong about that.

There were seven in the sun room, in total. Along with the 5 in the photo, where was one in the box nest in the shelf above, and one more was on the top of another shelf, in the corner by the old kitchen window.

Once outside, I think I counted 14 cats this morning, but I’m not quite sure.

While putting some kibble out under the shrine, I got a giggle out of this.

Deer tracks… of a sort! A deer went galumphing through the snow, instead of using the cat paths, leaving big holes.

You know what else is amusing?

The fact that my spell check accepts the word “galumphing.” !! :-D

In other things, I’m looking to finally go our Costco trip into the city today. We’re at -21C/-6F right now, with a wind chill of -31C/-24F. We are supposed to warm up to -12C/10F with a wind chill of -21C/6F this afternoon, so I’m going to wait a bit before I head out. Looking at the long range forecast, this is supposed to be our coldest day for the rest of the month. In fact, after the middle of the month, we’re supposed to have several days above freezing!

Wouldn’t that be nice.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Hhmm… the more I look at the weather, the more I’m thinking, maybe I should just wait until tomorrow to go to Costco.

Can you tell I really don’t want to go at all? :-D

The Re-Farmer

Sunday kitties

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

A bit of adorable cat therapy for the day.

Beep Beep and her “baby”, Turmeric, were all shmushed together adorably, looking so sweet and innocent.

They lie.

;-)

I counted a total of 14 outside cats this morning. They were very happy to see me. The water bowl in the sun room was completely dry, and all the kibble was gone. From the state of things, it looks like something other than cats has been into it. We’d given them a big, meaty turkey carcass to pick at, but something made off with most of the bones last night.

I stayed out longer this morning, hauling more snow away from the pile at the well cap, and getting the burn barrel going again, to burn away more of the sawdust from the cat litter. It keeps going out. :-/ Not enough air getting into the barrel to keep it smoldering.

Before going back inside, I found Agnoos had claimed prime real estate in the sun room. :-) One of my daughters headed out later, to continue working on the snow pile, and Agnoos was still there!

Feeling the need for some cat therapy right now. I just got a call from my brother, who had made the drive out to visit our mother. I can’t go into detail here, but it turns out my mother has, yet again, stabbed him in the back and kicked him in the teeth. She actually did it over a year ago, but he just found out about it today, and the betrayal is just heartbreaking.

One thing is for sure. I am so very thankful that my brother owns the property we are on, not my mother. If my mother still owned the farm, we’d probably have moved out by now. Knowing all this is part of my mother’s slowly failing mental faculties does not make it any better. She’s just well enough to function independently, but also just far gone enough to really mess things up, with no understanding of the consequences of her actions.

And my poor brother is baring the brunt of it.

He deserves so much better.

The Re-Farmer

Hard Crab Apple Cider follow up – I am the queen of procrastination!

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We’ve had a busy day outside our living room window!

We’ve had quite a few deer visiting the feeding station, and just plain hanging out. The piebald has been standing around the old junk pile (maybe we should start calling it something else, since we cleared out the junk and there’s just old stacked boards now), chillin’ for at least a couple of hours. Others have just been wandering around the area, sometimes at the feeding station, sometimes nibbling lilac twigs, sometimes among the spruces, nibbling whatever underbrush they happen to be next to.

Keith had front row seating to watch them all, with his ever tragic expression!

Now that Saffron is gone, other cats have been sitting on the warm light fixture over the seedlings. Especially Fenrir and, pictured above, Beep Beep.

It must feel nice on their still nekkid bellies!

Today, I finally got around to sterilizing bottles and equipment, and bottling the second carboy of hard crab apple sider.

The one I meant to bottle months ago!

The other other we had fermenting was bottled back in August. If you follow that link, the post has links to the whole process of making it, starting from when we picked the apples back in September, of 2020. We had no apples in 2021, so no new crab apple brews of any kind, sadly.

So… yeah. This carboy has been fermenting since September of 2020.

When the other carboy was bottled, we didn’t do a hydrometer reading, so I did that from the last bottle we’ve got of it, while preparing to bottle the second batch.

I really hate doing hydrometer readings. I can’t read the tiny numbers and have to take pictures to be able to see them – but the camera does NOT want to focus on the hydrometer.

Anyhow.

After – hopefully – reading the hydrometer right, the ABV calculator I’ve got came to 10.5% Alcohol By Volume.

For the second carboy, I did a reading before starting to bottle, and the calculation came to 11.8% Alcohol By Volume.

Not too shabby!

The jug we’re using as the carboy after racking the initial brew was repurposed from a 3L wine bottle. I was able to fill three 750L bottles, plus a 250ml bottle, before it was down to the dregs.

Of course, we had to do a taste test to compare the two.

The first thing you’ll notice in the pictures, is that the cider I was about to bottle is a darker colour compared to the one already bottled.

The previously bottled cider had a strong, almost bitter, taste to it. It tasted stronger of alcohol, too, though it had a lower percentage.

The newly bottled cider had a fruitier, smoother taste.

Both tasted good, but I prefer the one that stayed in the carboy for 1 1/2 years. That extra 7 months seems to have made a positive difference.

I do hope we have crab apples this year. I look forward to making this again!

The Re-Farmer

Heavy sigh

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

First, let’s look at adorable cats.

Like this picture of Nosencrantz my daughter took.

She was very, very interesting in smelling my daughter’s phone!

While doing my morning rounds, I got entertained by Chadiccus.

Who just loves flinging himself onto the ground in front of my feet and rolling, trusting that I will somehow not step on or trip over him.

The morning rounds done and critters fed, my daughter and I headed to town to pick up my mother’s car and drop off the van again.

New batteries are a lot more expensive than I remember. The bill was over $200. Which was less than half of what we had budgeted, so that worked out. Getting a new tensioner for the van installed is going to cost between $100 and $150.

After paying for the work on the car, then dealing with the van, my daughter drove my mother’s car across the street to the grocery store to do some shopping. I caught up with her, but just needed to get a couple of our big water bottles refilled, so I was quickly finished and went to the car. Things being a bit chilly, I started it to warm up.

The check engine light was on.

*sigh*

I sent a text to our mechanic about it. He told me it was there when he’d started it, but hadn’t scanned it. He just assumed it had been there before, like with our van. Since we’d never been able to start my mother’s car after that “pop” happened, I’d never seen it before.

My OBDII scanner was in the van.

So I walked over to get it, and happened to cross paths with the mechanic as he came out to get the next vehicle he had to work on. We chatted a bit, and he’ll let us know an estimate on the wipers for the van as soon as he can, then I went to do a scan on my mother’s car.

The first issue was finding the port to plug the frikkin thing in. I knew more or less where it was, but just can’t see it. I took several flash pictures of the underside of the dash before I could finally see it, then I still had to find it by feel.

I finally got it in and did a scan, and got two fault codes with a message reading “2Gray fault codes might only be clearable by the ECU itself after ‘N’ fault-free drive cycles have completed.”

One of the codes was P161B and labelled “null”. When I did the web lookup, it came up as “not found.” Once at home I did a search, specifically for the code and my other’s make and model car, and got some information.

“… It is a check engine light code which indicates that the catalyst’s system efficiency is less than the required threshold. In simple terms, it means that more pollution is added into the air than what was supposed to be because of your car. Other symptoms that may indicate this problem are when the Check Engine Light illuminates and when there is a visible lack of engine power.”

For possible causes:

  • Rarely – faulty Powertrain Control Module (PCM-programming required after replacement)
  • Rough running engine due to misfiring plugs. Many engines have misfire codes to indicate the cylinder effected, such as P0307 for number 7.
  • A large vacuum leak would cause a massive amount of un-metered air to enter the intake manifold resulting in an overly lean mixture.

The engine is running smoothly.

The other code was: P0700 Transmission Control System (MIL Request)

The web look up had some pretty extreme possibilities, ranging from ‘work was just done’ to ‘transmission is worn out’.

Looking it up at home, I found:

  • Faulty transmission control module
  • Transmission valve body fault
  • Shift solenoid issues
  • Open or short in the wiring harness

This car has a long history of electrical problems.

Looking at the symptoms:

  • Check Engine Light displayed on the dashboard
  • Poor gas mileage
  • Transmission shifting problems
  • Engine stalling, running poorly, or dying

I’ve noticed poor mileage for as long as we’ve been taking care of the car for my mother, however it doesn’t seem to have any problems shifting that I can remember, nor does it have a history of stalling, etc. When we got the EGR valve replaced and our mechanic told us to stop buying gas where we were, we also stopped buying gas there for my mother’s car, and it has been running noticeably smoother, since.

Well, I guess when we pick up our van tomorrow, we will be dropping my mother’s car off again to get looked at. It may have a spiffy new battery, but we never did find out what that “POP” noise I’d heard was from.

My mother has been talking about selling the car for quite some time. My brother and I have both resisted, mostly because we do need a smaller car that she can get in and out of. It is very difficult for her to get in and out of our van, and I’m the closest one available to help her with errands. It’s also been our emergency back up vehicle.

It would be bizarre, indeed, if we end up having to sell and replace my mother’s car, faster than our van.

That’s a decision we’ll have to make, together with my mother and brother, after the garage has had another chance to check it out.

On a more entertaining note, my daughter came in while I was writing this and shared something she’d seen. When we got back with my mother’s car and parked it in the garage, my daughter went ahead to get the wagon to bring our stuff to the house. As she entered the inner yard, she startled a deer – in front of the kibble house! Our first confirmation that yes, it has been the deer drinking up all the water when we’ve found the heated water bowl empty. Because of where my daughter was, the deer started running down the cat path to the storage house, then cut through the West yard to go to the maple grove. The snow, however, is so deep, it had to repeatedly leap, as if jumping a fence, just to get through. It was quite a struggle!

No surprise we are seeing so many deer on the roads these days. They can actually move around.

The Re-Farmer

Looks like good news this morning

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I heard back from our mechanic today.

First thing is that it looks like my mother’s car simply needs a new battery. !! He has no idea what made that “POP” noise I heard; possibly a backfire, though it didn’t sound at all like a backfire to me. He put in another battery and it’s running fine. A new one has been ordered and we should be able to pick it up tomorrow. A battery is much more affordable than I feared!

While we are there to get my mother’s car, he will check the belt and tensioner on our van. He said the tensioner did seem kind of finicky when they worked on it. I’ll talk to him about our wipers and the issues with the EGR valve when we are there tomorrow. With spring coming, we just can’t be without working windshield wipers!

We ran out of deer feed yesterday, so after taking care of the outside cats, I made a quick run to the local general store. I’ve got the onboard computer display on my van set to display voltage all the time, now. When I started the engine, it was at 12.2 volts or so, but very quickly went up to 14.3 volts, where it stayed. I kept the music off, but I did turn on the rear defogger, and it still held.

The trip is just 3 miles. I spent maybe 5 minutes – definitely less than 10 – inside, but when I started the engine, the display read 11.1 volts! It quickly went up to 14.4, but before I even drove my first mile, it dropped to 14.0 volts and stayed there – and I didn’t have anything but lights and heat running.

I look forward to getting that checked tomorrow!

Meanwhile…

… the outside cats are doing just fine. No signs of fighting this morning.

And I am amused by the one-eyed smiley face on the heated water bowl!

After I got back with the deer feed, I grabbed a couple of containers to put feed out for the birds and the deer – double what I usually do, because the entire bag doesn’t quite fit into the storage bin we transfer it to! :-D When I came around the corner of the house, our usual two deer ran off – then stopped and watched me through the trees. Once I started heading away from the feeding station, they both came running, not even waiting for me to be completely gone.

They know who brings their treats!

I tried to spread the seeds out more, so they’re not fighting over one little spot, but… they seem to like to eat together out of one little spot! :-D

While checking out the deer through the window, I was enchanted by a rolling ball of fluff.

David is so adorable. When he sees us, he twists his head upside down, makes cutesy faces at us and start rolling around and twisting himself into a pretzel, to get us to pay attention to him.

It works, every time!

The Re-Farmer

Looking beautiful today!

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Would you look at this!

As I write this, it’s -7C/19F. I think it was about -9C/16F while I was outside this morning, and we’re still expected to warm up to -5C/23F.

It’s gloriously warm out there!

Funny how acclimatization works. :-D

Before I go on, however, I just have to share this horribly low quality picture of Nosencrantz.

Our cat is broken.

I didn’t want to disturb her with a flash.

Baby girl is enjoying life! She is the most chill cat, ever. Gosh, I’m going to miss her when she gets adopted out!!

We’re still keeping her and Butterscotch in my office/bedroom. Or should I say, we are mostly keeping the other cats out, letting them in only under supervision. Nosentrantz has shown little interest in leaving, though we take her out and carry her around. Most of the other cats are okay with her, but some are not. Beep Beep, Tissue and Turmeric, in particular, are not happy to see her. Mind you, Beep Beep is just a b*** and will randomly go after other cats anyhow, but Tissue and Turmeric will try to go after Nosencrantz, specifically. Which is a bit funny at times. Nosencrantz will be sitting on the red blanket, watching the other cats mill about, un-phased. Turmeric will see her, stand up by the bed and start batting and hissing at her, and Nosencrantz will just look at her, like she’s nuts.

Which she is.

Butterscotch, on the other hand, hardly ever comes out of her favourite corners. She’ll move from one corner to the other, come out to eat, drink or use the litter box, and if no other cats are around, she’ll come out for pets. She especially likes my husband. But she wants nothing to do with other cats! Even if they’re completely ignoring her, if she sees any, she starts snarling. She’s even started to snarl at Nosencrantz, sometimes! She just wants people. No cats.

As for the outside cats, they are quite enjoying the warmer weather!

They are very active outside, and we see them running and climbing all over the place.

With so much packed down snow, it’s become difficult to clean out the heated water bowl. The cord is completely buried, so all I can do is tip out the water into the snow.

Nice to see Ghost Baby making an appearance. I do wish we could convince her to come closer. She’s the most feral of all the yard cats.

I’m amused by the spot on the roof of the cat’s house. Even with snow on it, they’ll sit in the spot above the heat lamp inside. :-D

I took advantage of the warmth and got the burn barrel going, which required digging it out again, digging out the path the the electric meter, then started working on clearing snow away from the house.

Some of it was quite hard packed, and needed to be broken up with the ice chipper.

I think I got about a half dozen wheelbarrow loads hauled away, before the burn barrel was done and it was time to go inside. Not a lot of snow can fit in the wheelbarrow before it all just starts sliding down the sides.

Agnoos really likes it when I’m tending the burn barrel, for some reason!

It’s going to take many trips to clear the corner out. The girls and I will chip away at it over the next couple of weeks, while the temperatures are warmer, but not yet melting. We’ll need to clear away the well cap, too, which is going to be the most difficult part. We did try to keep it clear, but there was just too much snow.

While we have several snow shovels, the ergonomic one in the photos is our best one, and we prefer to wait until it’s free instead of using one of the others. Once I was done, my daughter used it to clear parts of the roof, so we don’t end up with water leaking into the house again.

Unfortunately, she noticed the shovel is starting to crack in the middle.

Crud.

Looks like we’ll have to find a new one sooner rather than later. The other shovels we have are not as strong as this one, and are far more likely to break with the packed snow we have to clear. Except for the one steel one we found, and that one is just too heavy for a job this big!

My husband’s disability pay came in today, instead of Monday. We weren’t sure if they would do that again, and my plan had been to do at least part of the big shop today, if it did. Unfortunately, I was not feeling well this morning. The deli pizzas I picked up as a treat yesterday apparently did not agree with me! So that will have to wait until tomorrow, depending on how I’m feeling. I would have at least liked to make the closer trip to a Walmart. With the paw paw and tulip tree seeds, we’re going to need more soil, soon.

Now, a new snow shovel is on the list.

The Re-Farmer