The snow has continued, off and on, throughout the evening. The system that, on the animated weather radar, looked like it was going to blow past us this afternoon, now seems to have slowed down. The snow part of the system is swirling around in a giant circle covering 3 provinces and several US states, but the new moisture being pushed up from the southeast and turning from rain to snow over Ontario, looks like it’s going to miss us on its way north. We shall see.
The warnings and alerts have reduced in severity, but we’re still supposed to get blizzard conditions – it’s just been pushed back several more hours, and is now supposed to hit us at around midnight. The amount of snow did get heavier again, and the winds are still high, which means…
… the garage cam is going to be triggered to send an image by email, every minute.
We’ve had many a night of that, this winter!
Oh, wait… it’s spring. :-/
I’m tempted to change the settings, so that I’m not going to find 400-500 emails with images like this, in the morning – I have a separate email address, just for the garage cam! I know myself well enough to realize it would probably be days before I remembered to turn it back on again. :-D
I can still see tracks left by the deer I saw going by, while it was still light out. I watched them come up the driveway, but didn’t see them leave, so I went looking out various windows. I expected to see them by the feeding station, or stealing the cat kibble again. I finally spotted one standing out by the compost pile. Eventually, I saw another, also just standing in the trees.
After a while, I noticed the one by the compost pile was digging around in the snow. I had to think a moment, to remember what was there, buried under the snow.
The grass clippings pile, saved to use as mulch on the garden. It looked like the deer was eating it!
About the only good thing is that it’s at least relatively warm. We’re at -2C/28F right now, with an overnight low of -8C/18F. As long as the critters can stay out of the wind, they should be okay, as far as the cold goes. They’ve certainly have much worse to deal with these past few months.
The system is supposed to keep swirling around, with snow continuing all day tomorrow. The predictions for how much keep changing, so I’m not even paying attention anymore. We’ll get whatever we get.
We’re supposed to continue to have highs just below freezing, for almost another week, before things start thawing out again. Which means we’ll be digging out our paths again, just to move around in the yard. How things are over the next few days will determine what we’re doing for Easter. My nephew was planning to drive out, though I hope they decide against it, but whether they make it or not, my brother and his wife are hoping to still do Easter dinner. I do expect the gravel roads will be plowed by then. Our municipality has been good about that. The plows would be out on the highways already, to keep the snow from accumulating too much. I’m supposed to drive my mother out with her car on Sunday, but plowed roads won’t do much good if we can’t get out of the driveway.
It should be interesting to see the state of things, in the morning!
Well, it’s certainly snowing and blowing enthusiastically, out there!
That hasn’t stopped the birds from enjoying the suet feeder.
The driveway is so white right now, it’s messing with the camera’s ability to “see” it, making for some interesting rings of colours on there.
I took this screencap of the weather app on my desktop, just minutes ago. According to this, the worst is still yet to come. It is still conflicting with what’s showing on the weather radar.
Well, it will be what it will be. My main concern is with the high winds, of course. When this is over, we’ll have to do a walk-about to see if any more dead trees have come down, or what branches have fallen.
From the looks of the weather radar, the most severe conditions are hitting the US, as the system sweeps across the Eastern states. I hope those of you living in those states are keeping safe!
While it’s snowing and blowing, we got some bread baking done.
A two-loaf recipe was divided into four small loaves. The prettiest one will be for our Easter basket.
Since I was baking bread anyhow, I made a batch of oatmeal bread, also divided into four small loaves instead of two regular loaves. That way, we get a loaf each. :-D
I’m looking forward to having one of them with a big bowl of chili, once it cools down enough. :-)
This morning was another contradictory one, where the temperature was pretty decent and warming up, but the winds made it insanely bitter outside!
I got some photos yesterday, of the piebald deer visiting again. Her face was packed with snow, from digging under to find the seeds that had been blown over.
Check out where she is, in relation to the bird bath! For the snow to be that high – and hard backed enough to hold her weight – is really something!
The piebald chases these two away if they come around.
I got this photo before heading outside this morning. They’re really digging into the snow to find seeds! When I came around with my little bucket of feed, they ran off, but watched me from the trees. When I next looked through the living room window shortly after finishing up outdoors, they were already back.
The outside cats were quite enjoying breakfast, sheltered from the bitterly cold wind that was coming from the south.
We are still getting blizzard warnings. One patch of snow has already passed us by, and we did not get much snow, compared to areas to the south of us. There is more visible on the weather radar I can see is on its way. The forecasted high has dropped, while the expected amount of snow has increased.
Thankfully, we can hunker down and wait it out. I feel for the people who have to drive in this!
We had some concerns about a red spot on the incision showing up, but it seems to be almost gone now.
Beep Beep is one of the cats we’ve been allowing in to “meet” Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, even though she tends to be one of the meaner cats. Butterscotch has snarled at her just like any other cat that goes by, but Beep Beep has been pretty laid back about the whole thing.
Doing the morning rounds today was surprisingly painful. Yesterday was colder, but there was pretty much no wind and bright sunshine. I did the shoveling without even wearing gloves. This morning, though we were at a much milder -19C/2F, the wind chill was -32C/-26F. It still is the same as I write this, several hours later. That wind burns!!!! My fingers got colder in the time it took to set out kibble and water this morning, than in all the time it took me to shovel, yesterday.
We had snow all night, but not a lot of it. Mostly lots of wind. The bulk of the system passed to the south of us. We still have blizzard warnings, which is supposed to hit us tonight and through tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get 10-15cm/4-6in of snow and high winds. They’re not saying we’re supposed to get a high of -9C/16F, but with 42km/h winds (26mph), it’s going to feel a LOT colder!
Looks like we’ll be digging all the paths out again.
Potato Beetle is still in the sun room. My husband spent some time cuddling with him, because he was lonely. Potato Beetle, I mean. Not my husband. ;-) That gave me the chance to get a good look at the wound on his neck.
I got a better look at the older wound on his forehead, and that’s healing up quite nicely. He’s managed to clean himself up, so there was no longer a big dark patch of dried blood on his neck and ear. I also could not find the wound! I could feel a small lump on his neck, but not see anything but a bit of matter fur. Potato Beetle let my husband skritch his neck in the area, so it’s clearly not hurting him. This is encouraging. From the size of the blood patch, I thought he might need stitches, but it looks like he lucked out again. The last time we thought he might need stitches and took him into the vet, he had several puncture wounds on his back leg – likely from a coyote – but did not need stitches.
This boy has probably used up a few of his nine lives!
Still, we’ll see about keeping him in the shelter and safety of the sun room for a bit longer.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are still being kept apart in my bedroom/office (which is about twice the size of the sun room they just spent 2 weeks in), but we are allowing some of the more chill cats in and introducing them.
Nosencrantz will sometimes hiss at cats when they come too close, but not always. Lots of tentative sniffing going around. Then I put Nosencrantz next to David, and she lay down beside him, all snuggled up, for a while.
David is a favourite snuggle cat. It’s not unusual to find two or three other cats using him as a pillow, or mashed up against him.
Butterscotch, on the other hand, has discovered the laundry basket bed in the corner of my closet, and moved right in. The few times she’s come out, she’s tucked herself under a chair and snarled at any cat that comes into view. Which seems to confuse the other cats, because they typically didn’t even notice her until she made noise. However, if I am petting her as they go by, she is fine and even allows some sniffing to happen.
The forecast we had for things to slightly warm up turned out to be completely wrong. Early this morning, we hit -40C/-40F, and that was without the wind chill. So I waited until things “warmed up” to -27C/-17F before I headed outside. I hoped the cats would stay in their shelters longer if I did that, but no. They were outside, waiting for me, when I came out! They are made of sturdier stuff than I am!
Nutmeg is tired of winter, too!
I got word back from our mechanic about our van. It’s going to need a new alternator and, after taxes, we’re looking at close to $600. So that’s going to have to wait until the end of the month, and we’ll have to juggle our budget to pay for it. Until then, we will thankfully be able to use my mother’s car.
This morning, I decided to move it from the addition on the garage it gets parked in, and into the main garage area where the van is usually parked. Where her car is, the doors don’t open well, one of them is breaking, and it barely fits. We pull in closer to the inner wall, which means if I have a passenger, they have to get out before hand, because the door can’t open. The outer wall has shelving and a counter against it. I park at a bit of an angle, so that I can open the driver’s door enough to get out comfortably, without the door hitting the edge of the counter. If we have anything to unload in the back seat, it has to be unloaded before doing into the garage.
Which is a distraction that can lead to forgetfulness.
After clearing the snow and opening the doors, I discovered I made a dumb.
I forgot to plug in the car.
No surprise that it wouldn’t start.
I plugged it in, then continued clearing in front of the garage. It’s just light snow, but not something I want to build up.
Because we are now getting blizzard warnings, too!!!
Today is Thursday. Apparently, it’s supposed to start snowing tonight, and keep snowing through Saturday, when it’s supposed to warm up to -12C/10F, and get as much as 10cm/4in of snow.
*sigh*
Before heading inside, I tried starting my mother’s car again. It sounded better, but still wouldn’t start, and I didn’t want to push it. It sounds like the battery is frozen. My mother’s car has a block heater, battery warmer and trickle charger, so it should just need a bit of time. I’ve left the south facing doors open, so that the sun can warm up the black car a bit, and will try again later.
I can’t believe I forgot to plug it in. :-(
This is not a minor thing.
Years ago, while living in BC, my husband and I rented a car to surprise the family with a Christmas visit. The rental car didn’t have a block heater; no rental place we called had cars with block heaters. We stopped for the night in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, when temperatures plummeted to -61F/-78F with the wind chill. Much to our surprise, it started in the morning, but broke down soon after we reached the highway. This was in the days before cell phones, so my husband got out to walk for help. Stupid dangerous, but he got picked up by a tow truck. We spent another 3 days in Swift Current, waiting for the car to thaw out in a garage, before finally taking the train the rest of the way. We eventually learned that the engine block had cracked in the cold.
Thankfully, we haven’t hit temperatures that severe, but it can still do damage. And with the van at the garage in town already, this is our only transportation.
After coming back in and talking about it with my husband, he told me something I hadn’t known. My FIL had forgotten to plug in his car, the night my MIL had a brain aneurism, shortly after New Year’s. They didn’t live far from the hospital, but the car wouldn’t start, and he had to wait for an ambulance. Given the circumstances, it would have made no difference if he’d gotten her to the hospital sooner, but for a long time after that, in the winter my FIL would regularly ask my husband if he remembered to plug in our vehicle.
This is not something to take lightly. Especially when living as relatively isolated as we do, now.
I will give it a bit more time, then try and start it again. I’m supposed to go into town to pick up some things at the grocery store today. Before the blizzard hits! We’re running low on cat food again.
*sigh*
February is always the hardest month of winter. Everyone is so tired of the cold and snow by then. This year, we had those few really warm days that teased us with hints of spring. Looking at the long range forecast, immediately after the blizzard is done, temperatures are supposed to drop again, then slowly get milder through into March.
There is most definitely a plus to not closing our gate anymore, to avoid having it freeze shut again.
Our angel with a front end loader showed up yesterday! What a beautiful sight!
With the temperatures, no one went out while he was still here, but I did make sure to send a note to the renter to pass on our thanks. Like many others, they were pretty snowed in, too. Having that front end loader sure makes a difference, though! Their kids were home; school was cancelled, and the buses haven’t been running for days anyhow, due to icy road conditions. Plus a shortage of drivers. I don’t know if that’s because the drivers are snowed in at their homes, too, or if they just don’t have as many employed right now. Could well be both!
The driver even made the area in front of our person gate wider. I think he could see, by the tracks in the snow from the tow truck, that the area in front is used, and where space is needed for turning around.
The cats are loving it! After the front end loader was done, I could see on the security camera, cats running around and playing all over the plowed areas! They were having a blast!
This morning, after feeding the critters, I started a bit of shoveling, including clearing part of the snow ridge in front of the people gate, where we unload the van. I couldn’t stay out for too long. I hadn’t put toe warmers on this morning, and my boots that are supposed to be rated to -40C/-40F… aren’t. :-D The girls and I will head out later in the day to clear the paths. I’m just so grateful that the big job is done. Yes, we couldn’t have gotten out with my mother’s car, but this makes life so much easier!
The kitties were looking pretty miserable when they came out for kibble! As you can see by the nose in the window, they were eager to get back into shelter, once they had their fill of kibble and warm water! I do wish I’d been able to catch the death glare I was getting from Caramel, who is drinking water in the above photo. I think she is going to be a very happy camper, once we manage to catch her and she gets placed into a forever home – indoors!
This is what the temperature was like shortly after I got back inside – and still is now, as I am writing this! The -28C/-18F is bang on, but I’m happy to say we weren’t getting that -36C/-33F wind chill. The wind may be coming from the south, which we normally have issues with, it’s only 9 kmh/5 1/2 mph, and what trees and outbuildings we have on the south side are enough to reduce that. Still, it wasn’t a good morning to be out there for very long, that’s for sure!
The 14 day forecast is looking pretty good, though more snow is on the way. On Sunday – tomorrow – we’re expecting less than 5cm/2in, but on Tuesday, they’re predicting another 5-10cm/2-4in, then another 2-4cm/1-2in starting late Thursday and into Friday. I know so many people who are even more snowed in than we have been. Many have the equipment to dig their way out, but they’re running out of room for all the piled up snow! It takes my old brother, who lives closer to the city, 4 hours to clear his driveway with his snow blower. My sister’s husband uses their tractor and it takes him 2 hours, though for where they are, it’s generally a longer wait for their roads to be plowed, so it only gets them so far.
I’m liking the sight of warmer temperatures in the forecast, but the warmer weather also tends to bring more moisture – and more snow!
As much as we needed that precipitation, we have enough, now. :-D
The snow started falling last night, and it hasn’t stopped yet!
We are at a relatively balmy -7C/19F. According to my app, the wind chill is -13C/9F.
I’d say our wind chill is colder than that!
It’s warm enough for the kitties to come out for breakfast, though Caramel’s expression looks like one of supreme displeasure! :-D
I am so glad we built the kibble house. It’s made things much nicer for the babies!
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are still doing well in the sun room, though Nosencrantz did seem almost interested in going outside with me.
Almost.
I had deer hanging around the north yard and waiting for me to be done. It was the usual pair, at first. Then this one showed up.
The piebald deer has returned!
This is at least the 3rd winter she has been visiting us. I can’t remember if she started coming during our first winter here, so it might actually be her 4th winter visiting.
She also chased off the other two! :-D
I checked on the van this morning. The charger read full, so I unhooked it, then tested the van.
It started fine, but then I watched the display screen, as the battery charge dropped before my eyes, then the “charging system failure” warning came on again.
So I hooked the charger back on again.
After making sure our mechanic was good with it, I called CAA to tow it over. As you can imagine, they’re pretty busy right now, so I made sure to let them know, there was no emergency or urgency. They couldn’t even give me an estimated time. Logging on later, they have an ETS past 5:30 this evening, but I don’t expect them that “early”. The driver will have to call me for more detailed directions, anyhow, because they just have the map pinned at the highway junction nearest us. Honestly, if they couldn’t make it out today at all, I’d be okay with that.
When it gets here, we should have enough power to start the van and back it out of the garage, but I’d the battery would be dead before they could finish loading it up, based on how fast I saw it loosing charge in the display. Chances are, they won’t be dropping off the van until after the garage is closed, so they’ll probably have to use their own charger, just to be able to park the van after unloading it.
The snow has pretty much stopped falling while I was writing this. A quick look at the weather radar, and it shows the system is just passing us now. It looks like rain is also on the radar, but it is going to miss us entirely. Previous forecast of reaching as high as 3C/37F this afternoon are now saying a high of -3C/27F. I don’t know how much snow we actually got, but the paths didn’t need to be shoveled when I was out this morning, and the driveway looks driveable. Which is good, because we can’t get the little electric snow blower out of the garage. I was able to shovel out one of the swinging doors on that side, but it still won’t open far enough to take anything out, and we’d have to take the wood chipper out before we could take out the little snow blower. At least we can get inside that part of the garage now, though.
Areas to the south of us would have gotten more snow than we did. My sister wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it in to work. Their farm is one of those “turn on the gravel road and drive until it ends” sort of locations, and their driveway drifts over quickly. I haven’t heard from my brother, yet; he’s even further south, and would be in the thick of system right now, judging by the weather radar. He should be able to work from home, though.
Things went south before I even woke up this morning. Or, should I say, things going south was what woke me up!
I still had a litter box in my office/bedroom, so our post surgical kitties wouldn’t have far to go, if they needed to.
I was awakened by the sound of Beep Beep vigorously trying to spread the litter all over my carpet.
And we still don’t have the replacement belts for our new vacuum, yet.
*sigh*
Then I went into the sun room to start my morning rounds, and found water on the floor.
Under the spare cat food bag.
Despite things cooling down, yesterday’s warmth has lead to water leaking in the sun room again, and it’s making its way through now.
And we still don’t know where the water is getting in, so we couldn’t patch it.
So I had to spend some time taking care of the bag of cat food which, thankfully, has an inner lining that kept the kibble from getting wet, and setting out a bucket to catch the drips.
Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were doing very well, and enjoyed their wet cat food treat. They are getting so spoiled these days! :-D
The kibble bowls outside had been picked clean of even the kibble from the brands they don’t like. I am pretty sure I know who ate it. Last night, on the security camera live feed, I saw a very large skunk, running back and forth on the driveway, and too and from one of the sheds. Skunks don’t fully hibernate in winter, and it can be pretty safe to assume a very hungry skunk visited the kibble house last night.
When I came outside, I “caught” a deer in the path to the compost pile, half way between the pile and the house. It froze and stared at me for a while, before walking away, then into the spruces. Even as I brought out the seeds to the feeding station, it stayed and watched me until I was almost clear of the lilac bushes. By the time I was heading to the garage, to take the van to the mechanic, two deer were at the feeding station. They watched me, but didn’t run away.
The van started well enough, and no warning light or message from the onboard computer about the brakes. I left it running to warm up while I went to unlock the gate.
The lock was frozen.
We don’t have lock de-icer.
It took me about 10 minutes to finally be able to get the key in and open the lock.
Which is when I discovered the slide bar that holds the two sides of the gate together, was also frozen.
This thing is about 2 feet long, and the ice had formed between the metal of the bar, and the metal of the gate it slides on.
After fighting with it for a while, I went to the garage, shut off the van, and grabbed a tool kit. I ended up having to remove one of the bolts that holds it in place, but also stops it from sliding too far over the other half of the gate. It allowed me to pull the slider upwards, pivoting on the opposite bolt, enough to break free of the ice. Much sliding back and forth was required to scrape the ice off. The ice had filled almost the entire length where the two pieces of metal where in contact.
That took another 20 minutes or so.
The gate is being left open, now.
Then it was back to the van and off to town, with a brief stop at the post office, along the way.
We’ve got high winds from the north right now, blowing across the road the entire trip. It wasn’t too bad at first, but the closer I drove towards the lake, the more snow there was, the more drifting, and worse visibility. When I reached the stop sign to cross the next highway, it was sheer ice and hadn’t been sanded!
Which is when a new warning light came on. The battery light, while my onboard computer flashed with “charging system failure.”
Seriously???
Thankfully, I was less than 5 minutes from the garage.
When I got there, his parking lot was full, so I pulled in behind his own vehicle and went in.
But not until after I shut off the van, then restarted it. The warning light did not come back on.
Once inside, I saw that not only did he have all three lifts full, but he managed to squeeze in another car in the middle, and a utility vehicle between a vehicle on a lift, and the bay door behind it.
At least he had another mechanic with him this time!
Clearly, he wasn’t going to be able to check the van, anytime soon. I did bring in the printout to show him and we talked about what was going on, as well as the road conditions. He thought I was going to be dropping the van off and coming back later, but that wasn’t an option. My daughter still has a limited license, so someone with a full license has to be with her, and my husband no longer has a valid licence, since they wanted him to do a legal name change when he tried to switch to this province’s license. And she can’t take the road test to get her full license, because of all the restrictions and mandates against organic humans.
I would have been willing to wait, or he could have called me later in the afternoon, when he could fit the van in, but with the road conditions, I didn’t want to chance it.
I’m now booked to come back at 10am on Friday.
It’s a good thing we did that, as conditions had worsened even in the short time I was in with him. It was slow going in places, and more than a few spots were down to almost zero visibility.
About half way home, that “charging system failure” warning came back on.
I was just coming up on the turn towards our driveway when the van kicked into battery saving mode and shutting things off.
After pulling into the garage, I checked, and the battery was down to 8.4 volts. It is normally at 14 volts.
Thankfully, we have a good charger.
Unfortunately, the battery is really hard to get at. The fuse box and a piece of frame support is basically on top of it.
But, it is charging, and I should at least be able to get it to the mechanic in a couple of days.
One of the things on the list of stuff to check that I got after changing the oil, was corrosion on the battery connectors. It was something I’d noticed myself. But would that be enough to prevent the batter from charging? The mechanic suggested it might be the alternator, but until he actually gets under the hood to check, it’s just guesswork.
So, there’s something wonky with the brakes. The battery is losing its charge. We have a loose wire in our manual headlights knob, so that if I want to turn them on manually (auto still works fine), I sometimes have to wiggle it just right for it to work. The ABS needs to be fixed, and on and on.
This van has done well by us, considering the problems we had when we first bought it, but it’s mileage is right up there; I’m actually hoping to catch the odometer at 456,789.0 km, but I might have missed it on the way home. It’s old and little things are giving out, all over. We’re keeping up on them as much as we can, but the budget is just not there to get it all done.
Meanwhile, there is basic maintenance needed on my mother’s car, we have other equipment that needs to be fixed, the roof is leaking, we’re on borrowed time for our well, and the whole house needs a top to bottom renovation.
A lottery win would really come in handy right now. Not even a particularly big win. Just enough to replace and fix the things that need to be done!
According to the hourly forecast, we’re supposed to stay at -34C/-29F for a while, yet. Even as we slowly warm up, those -38C/-36F wind chills are supposed to hang in there all day.
The plan was to head into the city today, and finally do our monthly shop, before it got colder tomorrow, and started snowing again, the day after.
The Re-Farmer 