This is one of the grey and whites – though the lighting makes it look more brown than grey! – that lets us pet him. He is so tiny!!
And yes, I know. He’s got leaky eyes. There’s nothing we’re able to do about it at this time. They all get it, off and on, especially in the winter.
Today, the ceramic heat bulbs we ordered came in.
The brand we ordered before is no longer available, but these are the same thing. The dimensions seem a little different – a bit broader and narrower at the top – but that might be just me. The old one is still in the garbage can in the sun room. If I remember, I’ll compare when I set a bulb up tonight. It’s so much warmer these days, it almost seemed unnecessary, but I don’t think the babies will mind a bit of extra warmth!
Today has been a very quiet day. I’m currently working on a reflective crochet pony tail hat while watching videos on building outdoor kitchens. My poor younger daughter is not doing well today (my older daughter has gone back to working at night and sleeping during the day, as she finds herself more productive that way). She did so much in the basement yesterday, she’s hobbling around with a cane, today. It’s a huge job, and not quite done yet. The mess the cats have been making is bad enough, but she’s getting into the corner of the basement that was most affected by the failed weeping tile during the spring flooding, and that will involve moving around an old gutted radio, a gutted phonograph, and my mother’s old sewing machine (which should still work), all of which are pretty large pieces of furniture. She’s been working section by section, and once she’s cleaned up each section of mess, she’s been bleaching the heck out it, so we won’t end up with mold and mildew problems. It’s unlikely we’ll get the level of moisture we did last year, as it’s quite unlikely we’ll see that level of flooding again, but it’ll help for when we’re able to finally paint things down there. The down side is, there’s really no one in a position to help her much at all, so she’s doing this almost completely on her own. 😔 She’s paying for it today, so she’s pain killered up and using today to recover.
We’re one heck of a gimpy family!
Ah, well. We do what we can and, little by little, we’re getting it done.
We are slowly coming out of what should be the last bitterly cold night of the winter. Last night, we dipped to at least -33C/-27F, with wind chills in the -40’s C/F The sun room, however, never seem to get much colder than -10 to -15C (14 to 5F).
The cattens took full advantage of that.
My husband got this picture through the bathroom window last night. From what I can see, there is only one adult in the pile; Broccoli.
As I write this, we’re coming up on 9am. My desktop’s weather app says we are at -28C/-18F still, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F The app on my phone, however, says we’ve warmed up to -26C/3F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F We should warm up a few degrees before I have to try starting my mother’s car. She and I spoke on the phone last night and already talked about rescheduling her appointment, if I don’t think her car would be safe to drive.
While getting bundled up before doing the outside cat stuff, I noticed something that is a first since we’ve moved here.
There is frost on the doorknob of the main entry door! We do have a sheet of insulation between the doors, but it doesn’t cover about 8 inches on the knob side of the door. We’ve got frost on the bottom, and on the windows, but I’ve never seed frost on the doorknob like this before. Not even last winter, when we didn’t insulate the door at all, since the hinges were a problem and we didn’t want to open it if we could avoid it.
I just realized that’s quite the reflection of me with my parka tucked under my arm! 😄
I had another surprise as I fought my way past the barricade of cattens under the old kitchen doors to feed them. Several of them were wanting to get into the old kitchen (which is colder than the sun room right now!), including one of the tabbies. We have several tabbies among the babies this year and, so far, only Judgement, a brown tabby, has been socialized.
This baby?
I got to pet him.
And I don’t mean just sneaking a pet while he (or she) was eating, only to have him run away. Nope.
After filling a couple of kibble trays, he was still spinning around at my feet, so I started petting him. He was a bit startled, looked at me in shock – then started pushing his head against my hand for more pets!
After that, food was more interesting, but I’m just amazed!
Also… I’m not sure who’s baby this is. We have a dark grey tabby that’s got a bit of white on him, and we have one that’s almost a black tabby, also with a bit of white on him. There’s also a big, fully grey tabby with more spotty markings from the oldest litter that I haven’t seen around for a while. This tabby is smaller.
I’m so losing track of all the cats, but…
Is this a new one?
Unlikely, but possible. The only reason I even suspect it’s a new cat is because I was able to pet it!
I didn’t even try to do a head count. Even the brief time I was outside the sun room was brutal.
Ah, the irony. My husband got me an early Valentine’s Day gift – heated gloves. They arrived at the post office, yesterday. I didn’t dare drive either of the vehicles to get the mail, so I’m leaving early to do it before going to my mother’s.
I’m going to have heated gloves, just in time for the end of the bitter cold!
This is it. According to the forecasts, this should be the LAST day we have stuff like this.
It’s been almost 2 hours since I took this screencap. We’re still at -28C/-18F, but the wind chill has gone from -37C/-35F to -40C/F. I don’t know what was different about this morning, but for the first time this winter, I was actually concerned about frost bite on my fingers. They HURT! I’m still doing short rounds, and the only extra thing I had to do was dump buckets of cat litter sawdust into the burn ring, and my fingers were hurting well before that.
The thermometer in the sun room, however, was reading about -17C/1F last night, while the outside temperatures had dipped below -30C/-22F. When their food was topped up for the night, it all went into bowls in the sun room, to encourage cats to stay in, or come into, the sun room. I think it worked since, this morning, there was still kibble and an almost full heated water bowl outside, while all the kibble in the sun room was gone, and the water bowl was occupied again.
Yup. This fluffy little bugger was curled up in the empty heated water bowl again. Look at that frost on his fur!
The lighting was better this time, and his nose actually looks pink instead of white, like it did in the last shot I got of him in there. You can see colour in his eyes this time, too.
I want to snuggle that baby.
Baby won’t let me snuggle him.
Sadness.
Our high of the day is supposed to reach -25 or -26C (-13 or -15F), depending on what app I look at, though the wind chill is supposed to be about -33C/-27F Yesterday, we had a hint of what was to come, reaching a high of -16C/3F. It was bright and sunny, and every time I glanced out the kitchen window, I was seeing cats running around and playing on the snow-clear sidewalk. The cats are really going to appreciate the back-side of today!
Tomorrow, we start to reach highs warmer than -20C/-4F, then warm up dramatically. One of my apps even forecasts 0C/32F on Monday! After about a week or so, it’ll dip down to the double digits again, but we are not expected to drop to -20C/-4F again, for the rest of the month. Possibly for the rest of the winter!
I’m glad things are starting to warm up tomorrow, though I will have to at least head over to the garage and try starting my mother’s car today. It’s plugged in, with its block heater, battery warmer and trickle charger, but… well, that car just does not like the cold, and has a very bad history of problems.
One of these days, we’ll have to invest in a heater for the garage. There used to be a kerosene heater in there, I’m told, that was used while vehicles were being worked on, but it’s among the things that disappeared before we moved here.
Tomorrow, I will be driving my mother to a medical appointment with a specialist in the smaller, closer city. She called me last night and, by the time we were done, we worked out a sort of schedule. I’ll head over early enough to pick up her prescription refills, since she doesn’t know if she’ll be home in time for them to deliver in the afternoon, and grab lunch. After lunch, we plan to leave early enough that, if road conditions are poor, we’ll still have plenty of time to get there. Then, depending on how long things take and how she feels, we might take advantage of being in the city so she can do some shopping. Since I also have parcels to pick up, and the post office isn’t open on the weekends, I’ll have to leave even earlier.
So I’m going to be out pretty much all day. While the temperatures are supposed to reach a high of -17C/1F, at the time I need to be leaving, we’re supposed to still be around -27C/-17F. Our current 15km/h (9mph) winds right now have the wind chill at -40C/F, and the predicted wind speed for the morning is -17km/h (11mph), which means that the windchill when I have to leave may be even colder than right now. Thank God we have a garage with room enough for both vehicles! Even if my mother’s car barely fits in the lean to addition it’s in. 😁
My mother’s car has a habit of not starting in temperatures like this. The van does better in the cold, but not by much! Plus, it’s so hard for her to get in and out of the van.
I’m really feeling the fact that we weren’t able to get that replacement vehicle!
But, we’re almost over the worst of it.
Isn’t amazing how the weather can play such a huge part in planning things out? Especially at a time of year when, if things go wrong, it can be life threatening. I’ve long had an interest in weather and climate but, since moving back to the farm, it’s become almost an obsession! 😄
This is what I found, when I was about to go into the sun room with the kibble.
One very bedraggled baby taking advantage of the empty heated water bowl!
Also, that has got to be the whitest nose I’ve ever seen on a cat. I think it may just be how the camera picked up the lighting. Particularly since the eyes look so light, too.
I am somewhat concerned about the long haired cats outside. None of them are socialized, really. There’s one that sometimes lets me pet him. We can’t get near the others. Their fur could get to incredibly matted. Even if we were able to get them to the point that we could pet them, I just can’t see them ever letting us brush mats out of their fur!
This is what I have to wade through, in the mornings!
The one using the empty heated water bowl as a butt warmer is hilarious!
Also, they’ve done quite a job of knocking things out of the shelves and off the counter. We’ll have to wait until the ground is dry before we can move things out to pick it all up. Until then, we need to watch our step for all little stuff that got knocked out of their various containers!
I counted 22 cats outside while doing their kibble and warm water this morning!
One of them was Pinky, the only kitten with orange we had last year. I was even able to pet him a bit, though he’s not quite comfortable with attention. I heard from the Cat Lady this morning; it’s been a while, due to her health issues, so it was quite a relief to hear from her. She had someone who was looking for an orange kitten and asked if we had any, so I tried to get pictures of him. This person might be okay with a young cat, instead, so I also sent a picture of Turmeric.
This, however, is not Pinky, nor Turmeric. It’s one of the cats we can’t come near, and I don’t usually see him sitting still when I’m around. I just had to zoom in to take some pictures, because this is the first time I’ve had a really good look at his eyes!
They are so very pale! Most of our cats have eyes that are gold or green, but this one’s eyes look almost like a pale blue! The photo doesn’t do justice to how light they really are. In the shade of the water shelter, they seemed to glow white. Just gorgeous!
After finished my morning rounds, I had to make a trip to a Walmart to get more kibble. The outside cats may be eating less again, but we still weren’t going to have enough to last until our next stock up trip to the city. I just went to the smaller, closer Walmart, and used the trip to pick up a few other things – including some extras for the freezer, and even some treats.
This is $223.46 – after taxes.
Usually, I get the biggest bags of kibble they have – and this time, there was plenty of cat food in stock – but I got the sense the cats were getting tired of it. There’s just one brand and one flavour in the 10kg size. So this time, I got two 9kg bags for the outside cats, and a 7.5kg bag for the inside cats, all in different flavours. The larger bags were just under $30 each, and the smaller one just under $22. Once I got home, I topped up their food, and they were eating quite enthusiastically, so I think I was right about the “getting tired of it” part.
They also had stove pellets in stock this time, so I got a bag for the cat litters. Just one, and it saved me from having to go to another store. When it’s time to stock up, I’ll get several bags from Canadian Tire. This bag cost almost $8. Canadian Tire has softwood pellets for just under $7.
Eggs were on my list, and the 18 count eggs were a good price, at $5.58 each, so I got two. Bread was on my list as well, so I got a couple loaves of rye bread ($3.47 each) and a couple packages of wraps ($6.27 each), which are bread products we don’t make ourselves. I also got a larger Walmart brand of hot dog wieners at $5, so there’s a couple of bags of hot dog buns ($3.67 each) to go with those. The weather has been so mild, we’ve been talking about getting the fire pit going, so these are a treat for the girls to cook over the fire. Also on my list was cheese, so I got Havarti, old and marble from the 2 for $10 selection. I had butter on my list, too, but I got just one pound. The cheap, no-name butter was $5.97. Much better than the local prices, but still getting quite high for no-name!
Not on my list, but at an excellent price, were a couple of chickens for the freezer. They were selling at under $2 a pound. I got the biggest ones I could find, but they’re still much smaller than the ones we got from my homesteading neighbour. At less than $10 a chicken, I won’t say no to something I can add to our supply if I can get it! I also got some sour cream, just because we were out, but I also got some carrots that were a very good price. We do still have the Black Nebula carrots, but we’re just not using them. They’ve got so many root hairs on them, and they’re so small, they’re not worth cleaning. Plus, the colour makes anything cooked with them look pretty unappetizing, to be honest. They’d be good for fresh eating or for juicing, if we could get all those root hairs off, but I think the last of them are just going to get composted.
Too bad we don’t have chickens yet. They’d love them!
Oh, and I got another bag of seed starting mix. We’ve got to get those onion seeds started! I was gong to do that this afternoon, until I realized I couldn’t put off getting more kibble. One last thing I got that wasn’t on the list was a deodorant for the girls to try. The price was really, really good, but it’s not a brand they usually use (my husband and I use antiperspirant), and I wasn’t sure they’d like the scent. I like to pick up stuff like deodorant, tooth paste and other toiletries when the price is good, to stock up our supplies, just in case. With this year’s mild winter, we’ve been able to get out as needed for a change, but last year, with the vehicles freezing and/or not being able to get through the roads or driveway at times, we definitely started to run low on such things before we could finally go shopping!
I also got some treats for my husband and I. The Valentine’s Day stuff is out, so I got some Cinnamon Hearts for my husband. One of the side effects of all the drugs he’s on is that he’s lost much of his sense of taste, so something that’s spicy hot is appreciated. He can actually taste it! It’s something handy to have, if his blood sugars suddenly drop again. He’s definitely had some scary moments. Which isn’t supposed to happen, since he’s on a slow release insulin that is taken only once a week, but it does. 🙁 For myself, I got some dark chocolate mint wafers. I also got a vitamin water drink for the road, and a bag of chocolate almonds to keep in the van. I like to have some sort of munchy in the van for those days when we’re running around, but aren’t able to stop and eat. Usually, it’s a big container of mixed nuts from Costco, but we aren’t going to make it to Costco until the end of the month for our regular stock up trip. Not making it to Costco for our January stock up has left us making way too many smaller trips.
With what I got today, we should not be running out of anything until the end of the month, when we do our February stock up trip. This time, Costco is going to be done first! It seems that if we try to split our shopping days and do the other locations first, we end up not making it to Costco at all, but doing more smaller trips instead – and that takes more out of the budget, for less supplies.
December and January are always odd months for trips, but this winter, even more so than usual. Extra trips involving cat stuff certainly changed things, too!
Hopefully, things will start settling down again, and we can be our usual hermit selves. 😉😄
I counted 18 cats while doing their kibble and warm water this morning.
Look who was amendable to pets today!
While resizing the picture before uploading it, for a moment, I thought there was some sort of digital goof at his back end.
Nope.
The black fur with the white snow behind it is giving an excellent view of both his undercoat and overcoat of fur! It’s really quite remarkable how thick that undercoat gets in winter.
And look! There’s a tiny little face peeking up at me through the window!
There’s actually five. It’s hard to see, but there are three cats along the bottom of the window. When I took the picture, I could see the one on the far left moving around. It wasn’t until I uploaded the picture to my desktop and used the auto photo fix to see if it would be any clearer, that I spotted the one way in the back!
It feels so strange to look out our bathroom window and see only a couple of cats on the swing bench, instead of dozen or more. In fact, yesterday I actually looked out once and saw NO cats in there at all! The cats are definitely enjoying the relatively mild temperatures, and using the cat house instead of the sun room. This morning, I counted only seventeen cats, and only two of those were adults. Junk Pile and Caramel. I still can’t get near Junk Pile but, every now and then, I’ve managed to sneak a quick pet on Caramel, while she’s on the cat house roof.
She doesn’t like that, though.
In other things, my husband and I were supposed to be out today. Last month, we had consecutive appointments with our doctor (having the same doctor saves a lot of time and travel!) that got rescheduled to today. Just a little while ago, we got a call from the clinic. A very apologetic receptionist was calling to reschedule us again! She was able to book us for the earliest appointment she could find next week, though, so at least we won’t have more than a month to wait!
So that opens up my day. A trip to the doctor is about 40 minutes on the highway, plus town driving and usually a stop at the gas station along the way, too. We like to arrive early which, at this clinic, often meant actually getting in to see the doctor early. They’re good about that. We’re both going to be getting our regular blood tests done. Lab and X-ray is right there, so what usually happens is, my husband and I go in together for his appointment (I’m there to keep him honest! LOL He has a terrible habit of making light of what he’s going through, which is not a good thing to do with the doctor), then he goes to do his more extensive lab work while I have my appointment. Then I get my lab work done, which tends to be much faster. This way, we get home as quickly as possible, with the least amount of time for my husband painfully sitting in the waiting room.
Between the driving and the appointments, adjusting to make it as comfortable and least painful for my husband, it takes up quite a bit of time, and most of that time is spent driving “gently”. He feels every little bump and vibration, painfully, so I am a lot more careful about things like how quickly I accelerate or decelerate, taking turns, etc.
Gosh. Now I have a whole day freed up! What shall I do with myself?
I guess I ought to clean out the litter boxes in my office I’d asked the girls to do while we were gone.
The Re-Farmer 