I have the best brother in the world! And the best sister-in-law!
We were looking over our options on how to get some of the supplies we needed. I even put feelers out to see if there was someone local who could give me a ride or something. No responses.
The grocery store in town had begun offering delivery service when the shut downs started. Was that still happening? And would they deliver here? I looked it up and discovered they do deliveries 3 days a week, including Fridays – today. Unfortunately, orders have to be called in before 11am, and it was past that when I found that the service was still available, so I didn’t bother to call to see if they’d deliver as far away as us.
After failing there, I headed outside and started up my mother’s car, hoping to be able to use it to make at least a short trip to the general store/post office. Even before I started it, when the key was turned part way and the console fan turned on, it immediately started making horrible noises! The car did start, with all sorts of nasty, frozen belt and fan noises, and the engine revved itself way too high.
I shut it off.
In my head, I know I probably should have just let it run for a while and warm up, but every time I thought of doing that, I’d remember an engine block cracked from the cold, and dying on the side of a highway, all those years ago. At these temperatures, it’s just too dangerous to risk a breakdown and not even know if I’d have cell phone reception to call for help.
After trying a few other options that didn’t pan out (made more challenging with our continued internet connectivity problems), I finally sent an email to my older brother and his wife. Long story short, I emailed them a shopping list and, after my brother got home from the office, they went back into the city to pick the stuff up, then drove to our place to drop it off, tonight!
They are so awesome!
Then, because my brother wasn’t done being awesome, he checked on my mothers car.
Of course, when he started it, it wasn’t making the noises or revving like mad for him, like it did for me! We popped the hood and he checked things out. It still ran rough, but he assured me everything was okay. He told me to leave it running for about half an hour, and it should be fine. Then they left, unable to stay for longer. By the time I went out again to shut the car off, it seemed to be running smoothly again.
So I guess I should make it a habit of starting both vehicles and just letting them run for a while, as I do my morning rounds. At least for the next few days.
*sigh*
While my brother and I were fussing with the car, the girls put away the groceries, so I didn’t see what they got until later. They did get everything on the list I sent them, but more of it! So we – and the cats – are going to be just fine for the next while. Plus, because they were able to go into the city to get it all, their getting more than I asked for, still cost less than if I’d made the trip into town. When I sent an e-transfer to pay them back, I made sure to add extra to cover the cost of gas, and we still have an ample budget left to buy locally, when we are finally able to emerge from our frozen cave and do things like refill our water jugs.
I am just to grateful that they were able to do this for us, and willing to do it so late in the day (waiting until tomorrow would have been just fine!), making the long drive and even taking the time to check on my mom’s car.
My brother and his wife are the best!!!
The Re-Farmer
ps: as an aside, as I write this, we’ve dropped to -37C (-35F), with a wind chill of -45C (-49F). All the forecasts telling us when things are supposed to start warming up seem to keep getting pushed further ahead, as this polar vortex stubbornly hangs around!
This is what we were at, when I would normally be heading outside to feed the critters. -40C/F At least the “real feel” was a bit warmer, though when I did go outside, there was enough of a wind to prove that wrong!
As I write this, several hours later, my phone’s app has us at -33C (-27F) with no wind chill. The app on my desktop has us at -36C (-33F) with a wind chill of -44C (-47F). Thankfully, what wind we do have is from the North, and our door faces South. As long as we’re sheltered by the south, it’s not too bad, but once I went around to the feeding station, what a different story! Even a slight breeze is brutal at these temperatures.
That cats were out and about, though! Mostly to sit in the sun, curled up like Nosy over here.
Last night, I was prepping a turkey for the crock pot (I’ve never done that before; I hope it turned out!) and made sure to keep some bits as a treat for the outside cats. It was probably about 10:30-11pm when I popped out to scatter it among the food bowls in the kibble house. I could see through the window of the cat house, the red light on the timer showing that the ceramic heat bulb was on. I also saw some white fur moving around, so there was at least one cat actually using it last night. When I came out this morning, I saw Junk Pile in there, and I think Nutmeg was in there, too. Ginger and Nosy were out by the house, and even Butterscotch popped up from somewhere while I was tending to the food and water. I saw Creamsicle Jr, too – he ran off just before I could catch him in the above photo. I was later able to see that his eye is looking almost normal again.
They’re active, they’re eating and drinking, and it’s too cold to fight, so they’re good.
We’ve been seeing a pair of deer showing up at the feeding station during the day, so I’m hoping we’ve got some good pictures. I think it’s a mom and her baby, though they are very close to the same size. Their fur is so dense right now! I know we have deer coming by during the night, but it’s nice to actually see them.
Meanwhile…
We got the call from our doctor this morning. After going over my husband’s file and the pain clinic recommendations, etc., he’s changing things up slowly over the next few months. So he’s got a change in one medication for this month, it’ll be changed again for the next two months, and then another medication the pain clinic talked about will be added. There will be no change to the opioids right now. All of this has already been faxed to the pharmacy, though he suggested we call them later, just to make sure they got it. They would be ready to pick up today, if we could get there.
As it is, I’m going to see if I can get my mother’s car going and try to make a trip to the post office/general store this afternoon. We’re almost out of cat food. :-(
Once again, none of the cats were in their cat house, and I wish I knew why. They were all looking like poor Nosy, here, covered in frost and looking miserable!
Amazingly, though, Nosy is in a warm spot, here. When I picked him up, his fur actually felt warm, from the sun. I took a scraper to the packed snow and cleared the front step so the mat and concrete is exposed. They’ll absorb warmth from the sun at least a little bit, and be more pleasant on the kitty toes.
After such a mild winter, nature is really giving us one last wallop! When I got up during the night, I checked the weather, and this is what we were at, just before 3am.
We were at -38C/-36F! While there was no wind chill at the time, the warnings are for wind chills between -40C and -50C. That’s -40F and -58F. And we’re not in southern Manitoba or southern Saskatchewan. We’re north central.
I stalled going outside, and yet even later in the morning, we were still at -36C/-33F, with a wind chill at -40C
The Dust and Dander rating was “extreme”, though. ??? What are they measuring for, and where, to get that rating, in these temperatures?
It’s hard to believe right now, but by Monday – just three days from now – we’re going to be hitting -16C/3F. We’re expected to stay in that range for about a week, and then we’ll be above -10C/14F and staying in that range. I’m even seeing a -2C/28F, in the long range forecast!
Of course, there’s always one last spring blizzard, but after these few days, that should be it for extreme cold for the season.
When it warmed up to -32C/-26F, with the “real feel” being warmer rather than colder, I finally headed outside.
The cats had no interest in food. There is still plenty out there. While there was still water in the heated water bowl, and it wasn’t completely frosted over, it was the warm water I was bringing out that they wanted!
In talking to my husband about it later, mentioning that the vehicles would be frozen, he commented “I guess you won’t be going in to pick up my prescriptions tomorrow.”
!!!
No. I won’t.
They do deliver to our area, but we don’t have a credit card and their wireless debit won’t work out here. I’ll have to phone them and see what we can arrange. I should ask to make sure they have my husband’s new prescriptions, too. If he’s off the opiates, we won’t be forced to wait until the last minute to get refills all the time.
This is another time of extra frustration. After we moved here, we talked to my brother a lot about what should be here, and what’s missing.
There used to be a heater in the garage. It was a kerosene heater. I believe it was my late brother that brought it out here, and I think all my brothers used it so they could work in the garage in the winter and not get frost bite. It is, of course, gone. Along with the huge, heavy compressor that had been in the garage (and, I’ve learned, two other large compressors that were in the barn are gone). If it were still here, we could have used it to warm up the garage enough to keep the vehicles from getting so frozen that driving them is a risk. As it is, there is nothing here that is capable of warming up such a large, uninsulated space.
There’s really only one person who would have taken it, even if that person may not have it in his possession, now. He’s done things like take furniture and given them away to others, so who knows where it’s at now.
I don’t waste my energy getting angry over all of this, but it does get frustrating, knowing that we are having a harder time over the oddest things, because of other people’s greed.
Ah, well. It is what it is. It’ll work out in the long term. We’ll just have to use it to become stronger and more resilient.
The Re-Farmer
Update: well, at least I’ve got some good news!
I talked to the pharmacy about my husband’s prescriptions, telling them that he had got a call from the pain clinic to follow up on his new medications. They had nothing on file for new prescriptions. I explained that when we saw the doctor after the pain clinic visit, they hadn’t called him yet, but he had assured us that if they recommended different medications, he would send the new prescription directly to the pharmacy, so we wouldn’t have to come back or make other appointments. So the call from the pain clinic was a surprise. They will call our doctor’s clinic and look into that.
Then I mentioned that our van is frozen and asked about delivery, and payment methods. It turns out that they can now do debit Visa! So we can pay for the meds and they will be delivered. It won’t be until Tuesday, because Monday is a holiday, but that’s still faster than if we had to do it ourselves!
If all goes well, not only will we have our prescriptions delivered here at the farm – with directions on how to find us – but they should include the new medications. If there’s any problem getting the prescriptions updated, I know they’ll call us and let us know.
So we at least have one less thing to deal with! Whoot!
With my concerns about the drive, my older daughter was willing to take time off from working on commissions to go with me. Her sister is my back up driver, who would be able to take my mother’s car to come get me, if it ever came to that, so she had to stay home.
I had gone ahead to start the van and give it time to warm up. The first time I started it, it immediately stalled. It started again, and I could hear the fan and belts screaming from being so frozen, and the idle was way too high.
It’s just cold. It’s entirely possible that, if I just left it running for a few minutes, the engine would have warmed itself up and been just fine.
Memories of a rental car’s engine block cracking from the cold, many years ago, were enough to convince me not to push our luck.
My daughter barely had time to get out of the house by the time I was closing up the garage again.
At least we have a garage! It may be completely insulated, but at least the vehicles are getting hit by the winds and snow; just the temperatures. Even when we were living in the city, we just had an outdoor parking spot, and our old home has been hit with the same bitter cold we have.
Which means it will be at least a week before we can do any sort of major shopping. I should be able to take my mother’s car (which has a battery warmer and trickle charger, as well as a block heater, and that part of the garage does actually have a bit of insulation) to the post office/general store. We can at least get some basic groceries, cat food and (I think) litter, if we need to.
For now, my younger daughter and I have been doing some bread baking, and I whipped up some mayonnaise. Making mayonnaise is easy, but it takes a lot of oil. Thankfully, the last time I picked up a few groceries, I did get a large jug of basic cooking oil, so we’ve got plenty.
All this, because our van started acting up and needed repairs at a time when we should have been using it to stock up! Frustrating, but our habit of stocking up in general means that we will manage okay, even if we do run out of a few things. It’ll be inconvenient, but we’ll be okay.
When heading out this morning, I was on the lookout for Creamsicle Jr., hoping to get as much of a look at his eye as I can.
Much to my surprise, the cats that showed up this morning all came from either around the house, or the outer yard. Not a single cat was in the cat shelter!
Ginger came running up, right away, after the jug of warm water. Even Nutmeg almost came close. Nutmeg does let me pet him, every now and then, but not today. Ginger likes to drink right out of the jug (he’s more careful about it, after knocking it over once!), so I left him to it while I kicked the frozen water bowls out of the snow and knocked out the ice. The heated water bowl was mostly frozen over, but not as much as yesterday. I tried looking in the windows into the cat’s house, but could see nothing to explain why they weren’t using it.
While I was taking care of the bird and deer feed (yesterday, we saw five deer come to the feeding station!) I was happy to see Creamsicle Jr.
I had to walk past him to go back to the sun room after putting bird and deer feed out, which he didn’t like, but that warm water was tempting enough that he didn’t run away completely. I tried to move slowly and carefully to get these pictures, trying not to scare him away.
It half worked.
He did not like me coming close.
You can see some frost on the tips of his fur. All of the cats that came out had frosted tips! I don’t know where they were sheltering instead of their cat house, but wherever it was had enough humidity to get them frosty.
The one eye does seem to be more open now. The dark whatever-it-is under his eye and next to his nose is actually something stuck and dangling from a bit of fur.
The poor thing looks so miserable! It’s frustrating, that we were not able to socialize him more over the summer. I really want to get a closer look at that eye and maybe give it a wash, but not even Ginger is socialized enough for that. Hopefully, whatever is wrong will heal up faster as we get warmer.
At the time I headed out, we were still at -34C, though the “real feel” put us at -32C (-29F/-25F). As I write this, the app on my desktop, from The Weather Network, has us at -33C with a “feels like” of -38C (-27F/-36F). It also says our high of the day is expected to be -24C with a “feels like” -33C (-11F/-27F). My Accuweather app on my phone, however, has us at -29C and a “real feel” of -27C (-20F/-16F) with a high of -21C (-6F) with the “real feel” expected to be -31C (-24F).
It’s supposed to get colder again for a few more days, then slightly milder for another couple of days. After that, we’re basically hitting spring and temperatures are expected to keep getting warmer and warmer. By the end of February and into March, we should be hovering just under freezing. So in the week after this polar vortex is finally gone, we’ll be warming up by about 30 degrees from what we’re at right now. It’s going to feel positively tropical. We’re going to be breaking out the shorts and t-shirts! :-D
So I’m going to have to take advantage of this relatively warm day and head into town. Making our monthly bulk shop is out the window for this month. Buying locally, little by little, has really wrecked our budget. It’s the things like cat food and litter that is so much more expensive here that messes up our numbers. I know a lot of people hate on Walmart, but it’s places like that, and their prices, that allow us to have the room in our budget to care for the cats, and ourselves, at the same time. At Walmart and Costco prices, we easily spend about $300 a month on cat food and litter. Buying the same quantities locally would be closer to $600.
My original plan had been to head out late this morning to hit the post office before the general store it’s located in closes for the afternoon, as they do every Wednesday. However, the mail can wait. I’ll head out in the afternoon, instead. I’ll be heading into town, first. The package my husband was supposed to get turns out to be with Purolator, not FedEx, and now they’re saying we’re not in their delivery zone. They never said that when they first phoned him about it. It has been delivered to a depot in town and we’ve got 5 business days to pick it up. Fair enough. I can take advantage of that side trip to fill our gas tank (at a non co-op gas station, so we don’t end up with more than $400 in damages again) along the way. I’ve already gone over my planned route with a daughter. I’ll be going to the Walmart in a smaller city. They don’t have as much available there, but my sister lives not too far from there, so if the van breaks down on the road, I can call her for help.
I’ll be taking a route that will take longer, but the highway runs through a number of small towns. I know I’ll have a cell phone signal along there, too. My usual route would be first to the town my mother lives in, and the cell phone dead zone covers most of that drive. There’s nothing but isolated farms in between. From that town, I would cut across to a different highway, take the highway to another cross road before finally reaching the highway that goes to the city I am aiming for. The entire route is basically open land with a few farmhouses tucked away behind shelter belts, well away from the roads. The only towns I would go through, between home and this city, is the town my mother lives in, and the village near my sister’s farm.
I sometimes think I’m being ridiculous about this. I grew up there, and I’ve moved back to this area with my own family a couple of times over the decades. At one point, we lived in a house my parents owned, maybe 3 miles away from where we are now, and my husband was one of the many people who made the commute to the city. We are not strangers to these temperatures and road conditions, and didn’t think twice of packing the kids into the car and making a trip to the city just to see a movie. Back then, however, we had a car that was only 3-5 years old, and we were all younger and able bodied.
The van we have now is almost 15 years old and has well over 400,000km on it. We depend on that van more than we’ve depended on any vehicle before. Partly because, with his disability, it’s the vehicle my husband can get in and out of, and has room for his walker. Partly because it allows us to do those monthly shops that would never fit in any car we’ve ever owned.
Thankfully, we do have my mother’s car as a back up vehicle. It’s a couple of years newer than ours and has half the mileage, but has had a remarkable number of problems with it, and not just because of my mother’s terrifying driving habits. After discovering what happened with our van, I’ve already asked the mechanic about checking it over when we bring her car in for an oil change. My mother bought her gas at the co-op gas stations, too, so it may well be pretty clogged up. It would explain things like the terrible mileage. It’s still a relief to have it. We may not use it much, and the registration and insurance costs more than for our van, but being as much in the boonies as we are, it’s worth that expense to have access to a second vehicle, just in case.
Bah. I’m rambling right now. Nerves. I really don’t want to make this trip, but we just can’t afford to buy what we need locally. They often don’t even have any inventory left for things like the bigger boxes of cat litter (almost half the size of what I can get at Walmart or Costco, but almost double the price!). Other things, we just can’t get locally.
But hey! In the time it took to write this, it has warmed up a degree! :-/
The deep freeze continues, though today we are actually a bit warmer. As I write this, we have reached -24C, though the wind chill puts us at -36C (-11.2F/-32.8F).
If I were not waiting for a phone call from my lawyer, I would have gone at least to the smaller city in the area, to do the bulk shopping we have yet to manage this month. Tomorrow is supposed to be much the same as today, then temperatures will drop again for a few more days, so I am shooting to make the trip tomorrow.
I really wish I could trust our vehicles more. Perhaps I’m being over cautious, but we’ve had so many vehicle problems over the years, I can’t help it! By the middle of the month, things are going to warm up quite a bit again, and I’d rather wait until then, but there are things we will run out off, before then. Mostly cat food and litter.
The heated water bowl was almost completely frozen over. That hole was kept open by the cats themselves, as they drank!
Creamsicle Jr’s eye seems to be stuck completely shut. Zooming in with the camera is the best I can do to see it, as he takes off if I come any closer. The poor thing. This winter has been rough on him!
Well, it’s done. I had my teleconference court date this morning.
What a waste of time.
I figured we would have one of two results. Either the judge would look at our vandal’s claims against me and my defense, and throw the whole thing out, or we would get another court date.
I don’t think a judge was even on the call. Just a moderator, going through the docket. She first went through those files that had lawyers, then the employer related ones, then finally the rest. Our vandal’s suit against us was top of the third list, so we were done relatively quickly.
We have a hearing date in July, in person.
Well, at least they think we won’t be locked down anymore by next summer, but who knows if that will change before then.
Among the things the moderator told counsel for the previous files, that applied to everyone else as well, was instructions on what to bring for the in person court dates. This included all documentation, including printed out photographs (no bringing a laptop for a photographic slide show), in triplicate – one copy each for themselves, the judge and the opposing party. Which means nothing gets filed in advance, as would normally be the case. Which means no one gets to see the documentation in advance and respond, or prepare, appropriately. Even the judge will be seeing this documentation for the first time, in session. For those with audio or visual presentations, they were asked to bring the equipment necessary to play or display the files.
As for the hearing date, our vandal was asked if he would have witnesses, and he said he would have two. ??? When I was asked, I said I had no idea that was an option, but that I could bring up to two witnesses. I probably could bring three, but that would include my mother, and it would be just too much for her.
And that was it. Our part of the call was done.
Once I finished with the call, typed up my notes and printed them off for my files, I sent an email to update my siblings, then phoned my mother to update her. She was frustrated, too. She also asked if she could be there in July. !!! I told her that yes, she could be present as an observer if she wanted, but that would depend on what restrictions are still in place. It would also depend on her own health and mobility, and if she physically feels up to making the trip, but she acknowledged that from the start.
Then I made a call to my LegalShield office and am expecting a return call from my lawyer either today or tomorrow. Unfortunately, the office is not in this province. If I did want to have a lawyer representing me in court, they would find a local one for me, but we don’t have the money for a lawyer. All of our “un-allocated funds” in our budget has been going into improving things around here (including trying to set aside funds for a new roof), or fixing vehicles!
It blows me away that our vandal is going through with this, and has found people willing to go along with it. I can make a pretty good guess as to who his witnesses are, and I am guessing that it has to do with my defense that included a list of all the things we know (or that my brother could remember) he’s taken from the farm, totaling over $45,000 in estimated value. Which is fine. I’m not counter suing him, since he didn’t take those from me. He took them from my mother. If he wants to waste his time trying to prove any of it belonged to him, all that does is bolster my own defense. Which, simply put, is that I don’t own, nor claim to own, anything here, and that I had already told him that he could take what was his, if he could prove ownership. Of the stuff he listed that he claims are his, which he thinks is worth $13,000, he’s claiming things that aren’t his, and of the stuff that he actually does have some claim to was abandoned here so long ago, they have rotted away to the point that they’re barely worth anything even as scrap metal. Especially right now, when the scrap metal prices are so horrible. Other things he’s claiming are his (they aren’t) are just plain petty squabbling. He was also claiming things that he’d never claimed were his until I saw them on his list.
All this because I filed a restraining order against him after catching him trying to break the gate again.
I look forward to any advice my lawyer gives me.
With the cold we’ve been having, I have been negligent in switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, but after this call, I figured it needed to be done.
Though it was later than usual, it was still about -32C with a wind chill of about -42C (-25.6F/-43.6F).
The heated water bowl had a thick layer of frost and ice on top!
The kitties were out and about, including Creamsicle Jr., but I was unable to get a look at his face to see how his eye was doing.
I very quickly realized that, in my rush to get outside, I forgot to wear two pairs of pants. There wasn’t much of a wind, but at these temperatures, it was still brutal!
I brought the cameras inside, one at a time, to change out their batteries and switch the memory cards. I knew the old camera’s batteries were already getting low, so they were due. The status bar on the new camera had showed full, the last time I switched out the memory cards and had to use my hands to warm it up so I could see the screen inside. With this cold, however, I decided to switch the batteries, anyhow, and just hang on to the used ones to switch back again the next time I have to do this.
Even with being able to warm up by bringing each camera inside, by the time I finished putting the new camera back up, the cold was really hitting me! Butterscotch had joined me while I was putting the new camera back, and was just begging to be picked up! I carried her back to the house and she was just rubbing her face all over my chin, loving the ride! The poor things are so chilled – and yet, they’re still going out in the cold, and not just for food and water!
Though the temperatures are still expected to be extremely cold for a few more days, after the call this morning, I would not be surprised if our vandal still decided to show up and cause problems, so I felt it was really important to have the cameras in good working order.
I had a surprise when checking the files, in that there actually were files! :-D The old camera died after a day, which I expected, considering the batteries were already so low. Much to my shock, the new camera, which has stopped working outright in colder temperatures before, actually kept on going and even recorded files while I was carrying it to the house! All in hues of pink. When the camera gets cold, all the files are overcast in pink! :-D It even got some night shots, though with a bright red low battery warning. Stills only, no video. Which is better than nothing, that’s for sure!
So I’m increasingly happy with the new camera again. Some of the files showed an internal temperature of -25C/-11F which is well below when the camera stopped working completely, before. Interestingly, when I switched memory cards, this time it did NOT ask me to reformat the new card. Which makes me suspect that it might have nothing to do with the card needing formatting (I’ve tried using different settings when formatting the cards on the desktop, to no avail) and more to do with the cold making it harder for the camera to read the card. Once inside and starting to warm up, it could read the card fine.
We shall see how things go. Hopefully, the cold will keep our vandal indoors. I would not be surprised if he starts calling my mother and siblings again, like he did after he saw the defense I’d filed.
As my mother put it when I talked to her this morning, “we need this like a whole in a bridge” (translated from Polish). At least we could get a laugh over the Polish and English versions of conveying the same frustration!
For now, it’s time to move on to more pleasant things. Which my next post will be about!
My older daughter were both up late again, chatting about the frigid temperatures we’ve been having. She joked about a comment she read on her phone’s weather app, so I just had to check mine.
This was screen capped at just past 1:30am. -32C wit the wind chill bringing it down to -40C.
Also known as -25.6F/-40F
My daughter had been chatting with an international group of people and the temperatures had come up. After she told them what we were at, someone from the US responded with a “oh, for a minute there, I thought you mean Fahrenheit!” They were rather shocked to find out that -40 is the same for both. :-D
That whole “potentially life threatening” warning, though. Yikes!
As I am writing this, The Weather Network app has us at -31C/-45C (-23.8F/-49F), while my Accuweather app on my phone has us warmed up to -30C/-42C (-22F/-43.6F).
Our expected high of -27C isn’t supposed to happen until late this afternoon, so it was bundle up time to do the morning rounds.
I made sure to have nice, warm water for the kitties!
I am concerned about Creamsicle Jr.
I noticed something wrong with is left eye a few days ago. He won’t let me near him, though, so zooming in with my phone’s camera is the best I can do to get a better look.
I can’t tell if it’s a scratch over his eye, or if his eye is leaking.
Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about it. We can’t catch him to even get a closer look, never mind putting him in a carrier and driving him to a vet.
Poor thing. As if putting up with these temperatures wasn’t bad enough on its own. :-(
I was once again up way too late, and took this screen shot just before 1:30am.
We had reached -27F with a wind chill of -42C.
For my visitors in the US, that’s -16.6F and -43.6F
I think this is the first time I’ve seen the “dust & dander” part not say “extreme”. LOL
Of course, before heading outside to do my rounds, I checked the temperatures again.
This was screen capped just after 8am.
“Extreme Cold Warning” Yeah. No s***, Sherlock! LOL
At -30C and a wind chill of -46C (-22F/-50.8F), I waited a couple of hours before heading out.
The windchill had dropped to -45C by then. That was it.
This was a day to layer up – and skip most of my rounds, including switching out the memory cards on the trail cams. I fed the critters and that was basically it.
When I opened the door, I found a very friendly face waiting for me!
My brother’s dog just loves these temperatures!
He was also really, really hoping the kitties would come out to play!
They did not. :-D
This old doghouse was built for dogs as big as him – and even bigger – so he could go inside, if he really wanted to. Thankfully, he’s done no more than sniff at the entry and pine over the cats through the windows, tail wagging furiously! If he tried to go in, I think the cats would explode! :-D
As I write this, we’ve “warmed up” to -29C/-44C (-20.2F/-47.2F). Our high of the day is forecast to be only a few degrees warmer.
We’re supposed to stay cold like this for about a week. Two days from now is supposed to be the coldest day before it starts warming up again, but the warm up is going to be very slow.
Thankfully, we are stocked up well enough, even though we haven’t done our monthly shop. The only thing we’re going to run out of is wet cat food for the inside cats, and they can make do with dry kibble for a few days!
I have to add, I’m not really complaining. We’re warm inside, the hot water tank is still working, as are the well and septic pumps. Our internet may be ridiculously unstable, but we’ve got electricity. When I was a child growing up here, we didn’t have running water or an indoor bathroom until the mid 1970’s, which is when the new part of the house was added on, so there was 7 of us squeezed into the original part of the house. We had electricity, but power outages were common until about the 80’s. Even in winter, we used the outhouse by the garage (though my parents did set up a bucket in the basement to use at night) and a bathtub in the pump shack, where there was a wood burning cook stove to heat the water (and the uninsulated shack!).
When I headed out this morning, we were at -21C/-5.8F with a windchill of -33C/-27.4F
We’ll be getting colder over the next week, before we start going back to normal temperatures again.
It’s going to be a good time to stay indoors, drink lots of tea, and catch up on my crochet… :-D
Who am I kidding? The girls and I will probably be putting our heads together to figure out a gardening map. We’re dedicating a lot of planning for what will be temporary locations for almost everything, but we’re using our garden plots this year to help prepare the soil for when we plant fruit and nut trees in some of these areas.
The Re-Farmer 