Ooof.
What a long day today – and it’s not even 6pm as I write this!
The girls and I planned to head out early to the city, which meant I was out earlier than usual to do my rounds. The outside cats did not seem to appreciate me coming out so early to feed them! :-D The sun wasn’t even up yet, but what a beautiful sky! Continue reading
It was so pretty and sparkly, while doing my morning rounds.
There are still lots of ornamental apples on the tree, and the ground below is just covered with hoof prints. So is the area under the crab apple trees along the spruce grove, with a well trod path to the feeding area.
I wish I could have captured just how shiny everything was! The very air was glittering.
The Re-Farmer
After feeding the critters and doing my rounds, I got to see a lovely sunrise this morning.
I noticed something interesting while walking around the spruce grove. On the north side, there are always lots of deer tracks, between the grove and the apple trees. The south side usually just has a few tracks from the deer jumping the gate, or down the path to the barn. Today, I was seeing new deer tracks on top of my own boot prints along the south and east fence lines. The deer are taking advantage of the paths I’ve made through the snow! I find it interesting how wildlife in general will take advantage of what us humans have done, whether it’s using roads and driveways to get where they want to go, or my own boot prints to avoid stepping in snow. Seeing the cats do it is sort of expected, since they’re so much lower to the ground. I would not have expected it from a tall, leggy deer. :-)
The Re-Farmer
While doing the rounds this morning, it was -25C (-13F), with a windchill of -32C! (-25F) out there!
When I went into the sun room to give the cats their food and water, I found this.
I thought, for a moment, that the light bulb might have burnt out, but nope. Continue reading
This is what greeted me, as I was getting ready to head out with the cats’ food and water.
I find it so funny that Doom Guy will sit in the empty water bowl like that!
Note the little face peeking out from the cat cave set up (top right)!
We were able to stock up on deer feed yesterday, and I picked up a new mix of bird seed. I am hoping it is more to the liking of our local birds, plus it will be better for the hanging feeder. When I had just the black oil seeds in there, the grosbeaks would keep trying to get at it, but the base of the feeder is sized more for chickadees and nuthatches, not bigger birds like grosbeaks or blue jays. They could only land for a split second before they basically dropped off and flew away, not always able to get any seed, first. They like the deer feed, and eating on the ground or platform feeder, so between the two mixes, I figure we’ll have all bases covered!
I had company while doing my rounds, of course. This morning, it was just Rolando Moon.
She likes to follow along, keeping her distance, but she does let us pet her.
Though sometimes, she’ll attack our hands in the middle of a pet! She’s quite gentle about it; when she bites, she doesn’t use enough pressure to actually hurt, and even her claws are quickly retracted.
Then she’ll just as quickly go from biting to giving kisses!
Such a fickle girl! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Cats, being cats, will hunt things.
The outside cats do a great job of keeping the rodent population down. Every now and then, we’ll see signs of their successes. All part of that whole “circle of life” thing.
On the way out this afternoon, I took the time to get another pitcher of warm water for the cats before we left. I saw The Outsider by the entryway steps.
He looked at me, paused to bat something around, then ignored it for a bit, then batted it around some more.
A quick glance and I could see a tiny little fur ball and realized he had caught a vole. Something I’ve seen quite a few times.
Then he batted it again until it was upside down…
… and I saw the little legs wiggle.
Then I heard the tiniest of squeaks.
The vole righted itself, only to have The Outsider bat at it again, and pounce a bit. No claws. No actual biting.
Yeah. He was playing with it.
The poor thing would get tossed a bit, would right itself and sit there, but as soon as it moved, it would get batted or pounced on again.
While squeaking the tiniest of squeaks.
Normally, I wouldn’t do anything about this. Rodent population control is one of the reasons farm cats are so good to have around. But I could also see that this little guy was completely uninjured. Plus, The Outsider was interested only in keeping it from running away. He was much more interested in the pitcher I was holding.
Then he batted it again, the vole righted itself and just sat there.
I couldn’t help it.
I picked it up.
It made no effort to run away.
The Outsider seemed to be wondering what I was doing, until I put the pitcher of water down, when he immediately lost interest in the vole and went for the water, along with three other cats.
The vole stayed in my hand, no longer squeaking, but trembling mightily.
My daughter came out, and I handed it to her, so I could distract the cats away with the warm water – the bowls of water outside were already frozen.
It made no effort to run from her, either.
Of course, I got a picture, first.
He was so velvety soft!
Looking at that long snoot, I find myself thinking it might be a mole, not a vole, but when I try to look it up, I’m not any clearer on this. It’s like it has a vole body with a mole snoot.
I’m still thinking it’s a vole.
While the cats were distracted, my daughter went to where there were leaves piled up as a mulch in the flower garden on the south side of the house. She made a little nest in the leaves and dropped it in. It snuffled around in a circle for a bit, then she loosely covered it with more leaves, so the cats wouldn’t see it.
We are such sucks. :-D
The Re-Farmer
It’s still hard to believe it’s been … only? … already? a year since we moved out here.
After finally being reunited, we didn’t have much time to rest. There were some unexpected runs into the city to get things like a small tank for our fish. Too late for them, unfortunately. Continue reading
This morning, my husband told me to look out the bathroom window – and to make sure I had the camera on my phone ready!
Too funny!
So once the water is gone, our set up does double duty as a butt warmer!
Big Jim was prowling around Doom Guy, trying to stick his face into the bowl.
That was my cue to head out!
Yeah. They were pretty thirsty.
I’m going to have to make sure to top that up again earlier than usual, considering how much was gone by the time I was heading back into the house. The water outside isn’t going to stay liquid for long.
As usual, I had escorts while doing my rounds this morning. By about half way through, I had Butterscotch in my arms, licking my fingers. Beep Beep climbed up my back again, and was perched on my shoulder. Both were purring up a storm. Rolando Moon was following along, Doom Guy was trying to climb the back of my leg, and even Big Jim came by to see what was going on!
They make my morning chores outside both fun and difficult. :-D
The Re-Farmer
Well, today is it. The one year anniversary for all 4 of us arriving at the farm.
We arrived shortly after midnight. We still remember the final stretch. Almost 1800 kilometers of driving (with a broken door), and less than 10 minutes from home. I saw a shadow flash across oncoming headlights and stomped on the brakes.
The cat carriers set up on boxes behind us went flying. The cat lying on one of them ended up in the front seat. Stuff fell on top of the bucket we were using to transport the fish.
But we managed to NOT hit the deer.
Everyone was okay, though the cats were pretty freaked out! How’s that for a welcome home!!
The main thing was, we made it. We were finally together again.
For my older daughter and I, all we really wanted to do was sleep. Which had to wait until we got the cats into the house and closed off into a room while we brought in the plants (some died from the cold, though our jade tree recovered), the fish (they died a few days later. :-( ), the computers and most of the other stuff we managed to jam into the back of the van. After that, we could finally sleep.
The next thing was to figure out what to do next!
The house was a complete disaster, even though it was much better then it had been, thanks to the efforts of my older brother and his wife. A couple of days later, we would find out that the movers would cost $2000 more than we expected, and the fiasco with them just kept on going.
I never want to move again.
Which I know will happen. Eventually, as we get older, my husband and I will likely need to move into someplace like where his father or my mother live. Small, barrier free, etc. We’ve hopefully got many years before we get to that point, though!
A lot has happened since we moved out here.
I think we made the right decision.
The Re-Farmer
Once again, when going out to give the cats their food and warm water, the water bowl in the sun room was NOT knocked off the warmer.
It was also bone dry!
This morning, the cats were far more interested in the water than the food! When I go into the sun room through the Old Kitchen, I have to put down the bowl of food and the pitcher of water so I can open up the outer door. Usually, the kittens are all over the bowl of food. Except Doom Guy, who goes for the pitcher of water.
Today, not only did he go for the pitcher right away, but when I refilled the water bowl, the other cats left the food for the warm water!
Nice to see that the kneeler and the terracotta pot are both being used to reach the water.
By the time I finished putting the food outside and adding more water to the bowls out there, I had to refill the water bowl in the sun room!
Thirsty kitties!
After I finished putting the food out for the birds and deer, I decided to try and knock more apples off the trees that still have some left. I’d managed to shake some down the other day, and a few hours later, there was a deer eating them. Shaking isn’t working very well, so I went digging through the junk pile by the garden shed and found an old mop or broom handle. I used that to knock some apples off the first tree (it worked much better than shaking the tree, though I still got konked in the face by an apply in the process. Not the first time that’s happened!).
Then I tried to get some off the second tree with apples still left. This one, the apples are really small; almost as small as the ornamental apples. So I didn’t try too hard with that one. The grosbeaks, at least, seem to be eating them.
Then I went back to the first tree to leave the broom handle there, and found that someone else was interested in the grosbeak that was hanging around while I knocked the apples off.
He didn’t have much luck with the birds, so he escorted me as I continued my rounds. :-D
So did his mother.
She insisted on a ride. :-D
These guys are almost enough to make me a morning person. :-)
Almost.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 