outside cats

Our 2022 garden: sprouting onions, and can spring get here already? Please?

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First, to follow up on my previous post, I was able to get my mother’s car started. I left it to run for a bit before moving it to the other part of the garage – and plugging it back in again!

While it was running, I decided to use the time to dig out another cat path.

Because I’m a suck that way.

This is a path to a shed that’s slowly collapsing, and is in view of the security camera live feed. I constantly see the cats struggling through the snow to get through. I got about 3/4s of it dug out before moving the car, then finished it almost the rest of the way.

I left the shovel at the end for scale. There’s probably about 2 inches or so of snow on the ground.

I didn’t dig any further, because I know there are things buried underneath, and the snow level starts to drop there, anyhow. It was actually an easy dig. Once I broke through the harder packed top layer of snow, the snow under it was very loose and crystalline, making it light and easy to shovel.

I had closed up the doors to the garage, and the doors where my mother’s car normally gets parked have a old tire in front, to keep them from opening (I really hope we can replace those doors this summer!). The tire warms up nicely in the sun, so it’s a favourite spot for cats to hang out, out of the snow.

Potato Beetle was sitting on it as I started my way back, so I paused to pet him, immediately noticing what looked like fresh blood in the fur in an ear! It took me a while to find it, but he has what looks like a fresh wound on the side of his neck. All I could really see was a dark patch in his fur. It wasn’t actively bleeding, and I couldn’t look too closely, but I am concerned.

Potato Beetle seems to now be at the bottom of the pecking order, and a target. After talking about it with the family, I turned the power bar back on in the sun room, for the light, heat bulb and heated water bowl. There is still food in there, and I’d been letting cats in while doing my rounds, to nibble on it. Potato Beetle has been the one that tends to go in there the longest. He was born in there, so he’s very comfortable with the sun room.

One of my daughters has brought in a litter pan, and we’ve set the box nests up again. Now, we just have to find him again. We will bring him into the sun room for his own protection, and to hopefully get a better look at the wound.

Spring cannot come soon enough. Potato Beetle is on the adoption list, but the outside cats aren’t going to be done until the inside cats are adopted out.

As I am writing this, I can see cat after cat on the security camera live feed, using the path I dug out!

Let us now think of spring, and green and growing things.

Like onions!

This is the tray that first starting showing sprouts, but only now are they big enough to actually show in a photo. I got mixed up about which onions these were. These are the Red of Florence onions, not the yellow bulb onions I got in my head for some reason. I mean, it’s not like we forgot to label them or anything! LOL

Just this morning, we finally saw sprouts in the other two trays. Here, you can see a little clump of Oneida onions sprouting in the middle, and a couple more little sprouts in the bottom left corner.

It’s really hard to spot the sprouting Tropeana Lunga in this tray. Again, bottom left corner of the tray.

You can even see an Oneida sprout near the edge of the other tray.

I must say, having things sprouting right now is a huge psychological boost!

Having said that, I just got some messages from people I was going to meet at the grocery store this evening, and it’s just been cancelled, due to the blizzard conditions we are supposed to have by then.

So it looks like I’ll either be driving in now, or waiting until Sunday.

Can spring get here already??

The Re-Farmer

Well, I pulled a dumb

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But first, the fun stuff.

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.

Which would be nice, if it happens.

The Re-Farmer

Just a bit of snow…

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It snowed through most of yesterday, and through the night. Big, light, fluffy snow.

Lots of it.

The forecast was for 5-10 cm (about 2-5 inches), and I think we did get close to 10 cm. It was so light and fluffy, though, it made for easy shoveling.

In the paths, at least.

It also made it easier for the cats to move around in it, too.

Along the wall and into the old kitchen garden is what I had to dig out yesterday morning, to free the sump pump hose. That also required breaking the diverter free from the ice that had connected it to the downspout, then breaking up enough of the packed snow at the other end, to finally be able to move it out of the way. We’ll have to make sure it goes back before things start to melt, since it’ll be a while before the rain barrel can be put back there.

After clearing all the paths, which went much faster than usual, it took a bit more to clear the wheel barrow!

We had left it leaning against the tree is one more little shelter for the cats to use. And they did use it – until it got mostly filled with snow.

This is next to where the main paths form a T, so there was a taller than usual pile of snow right at the wheelbarrow. A lot of it was pretty hard packed by now, so it took a bit of breaking it apart with the ice chipper, just to be able to use the snow shovel.

That ice chipper has been getting so much use this year!! Mostly for snow, not ice.

This is why we need the wheelbarrow. We need to remove the snow from around the old basement window – which can’t be seen in the photo. It does have a cover over it, plus a drift in front of it. The shallow storage container visible in the photo was in front of where the sump pump hose comes out of the wall, and is now sitting on the drift, right in front of the basement window.

It hasn’t been a problem in previous winters since we’ve moved here, but we have enough snow this year that it will melt and drain right into the basement window, which is below grade. This is a fairly small corner, and there just isn’t room for the snow, so we’ll have to haul it out of the yard.

In the process, I want to dig that path down more to the ground, so that the hose from the sump pump has a downward grade again. Right now, there is a bit of a “hill” of snow it’s running across.

As soon as things are clear enough, we need to run that hose into the old kitchen garden again. I don’t want it draining this close to the well. Not a problem while the ground is still frozen, but if we have a more average summer, the old basement does get quite wet, and the sump pump will go off regularly.

Anyhow.

Getting most of that snow out of the corner is a job we will do, little by little, as weather permits.

The Re-Farmer

Let’s back up a bit…

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So, before we discovered issues where happening with the sump pump, our morning was pretty routine! :-D

The piebald deer was back again. Later on, I saw our usual pair coming by, and I think a singleton that’s starting to come by more often.

While puttering around the kitchen and heating up water for the outside cats, I spotted this camouflaged at, watching me through the window!

Inside cats, watching outside cat! :-D

I count fourteen in this photo.

I’m seeing Potato Beetle regularly again, and that wound on his head is looking like it really doesn’t like the cold! He won’t let me look to closely, though. :-(

With Butterscotch and Nosencrantz transitioning indoors, I’ll be able to leave the sun room doors open behind me while doing the morning rounds, again. Agnoos and Tuxedo Mask miss going into there! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Morning critters

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Well, this is a first!

This is the usual pair of deer that come by every day, sometimes several times a day. Yesterday, they were coming close, even as they could see me shoveling snow. This morning, the little one was comfortable enough to actually lie down!

Unfortunately, I ran out of feed. Hopefully, my mom’s car handled the cold snap all right, and I can use it to run some errands today.

Hopefully, we’ll also get word on the status of our van!

I just had to try and get a picture of Beep Beep, who jammed herself in between her babies, Layendecker and Big Rig. She moved while I was talking the picture, so it’s not as clear, but Layendecker is at least double her size!! He’s more than double her weight. Hard to believe she grew this boy. :-D

The outside cats were out in full force this morning!

I count 15 in the picture. There was one more that ran out of camera view. With the two in the sun room, that’s 18. Rozencrantz and Ghost Baby are not in sight, which means all are accounted for. Even The Distinguished Guest, whom I was able to pet, while putting the food out. :-)

Tomorrow is supposed to get even warmer than today’s high, but we’re also supposed to get another 5-10cm of snow, so if we’re going to get any errands done, today is the day!

I don’t want to go anywhere.

The Re-Farmer

Hello, Kitties

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We have not had an update on Cabbages recently, which means she has been doing well. The last news we had was posted here.

If you would like to contribute to our fundraiser to reimburse the cat lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, click on the button below, or click here. If you would like to read more about it, click here.

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The cold temperatures are hanging in there, but the outside cats seem to be doing quite well.

I often see them running around on the security camera live feed. I do wonder, though, about the times when I see half a dozen of them, all running back and forth on the driveway at the same time! :-D

Nosencrantz and Butterscotch remain in the sun room. Technically, we can let them out now, but with these temperatures and their shaved bellies, that wouldn’t happen, even if we weren’t considering bringing them indoors permanently. With Nosencrantz up for adoption, it would be just easier that way. Butterscotch… we’ll give it a try again. She came out when I set fresh food out for them, but didn’t really want attention, and kept moving away when I came near. Unlike Nosencrantz, who will happily accept being picked up and cuddled!

We’ve talked about bringing them in and have decided to wait until after the spice girls, Saffron and Turmeric, go. They are booked for their surgeries on Feb. 23. We drop them off in the morning, then the cat lady will pick them up in the afternoon, where they will be delivered to the fosters that are ready and waiting for them, to recover then be adopted out. With Cabbages unexpectedly leaving when she did, we now have 15 cats in the house. It’s probably not a good idea to make it 17, when two more are leaving in such a short time. I’m sure Nosencrantz will handle the transition just fine. Not so sure about Butterscotch.

It does mean we will be visiting them in the sun room as often as we can, and providing them with more toys to keep them happy.

Beep Beep looks like such a kitten in this photo!! Hard to believe she’s a minimum of 7 years old. It’s also hard to believe that such a tiny cat made such big babies. Cheddar and Layendecker, who are a couple of years apart in age, didn’t start big, but both grew into such hefty boys. They totally dwarf her. Even Big Rig is bigger than she is, though they are so much alike, I often get them mixed up. Only Saffron remains smaller, while Turmeric is almost caught up in size.

Beep Beep and Fenrir have recovered so well from surgery, I forget they even had it, until Beep Beep starts rolling and I see her belly.

Fenrir doesn’t roll like that. Ever. Checking her belly is a two person job.

I wonder how well Beep Beep and Butterscotch will remember each other, when we try bringing Butterscotch indoors? For all we know, Butterscotch is her mother. They’ve shared the parenting of litters every year we’ve been here, with Butterscotch more than happy to leave her babies with Beep Beep as much as she could. I’m sure they’ll remember each other at least a little bit, even if they haven’t seen each other in almost 2 years. Whether that means they’ll be friendly with each other or not, is anyone’s guess! :-D

The Re-Farmer

God Bless good neighbours!

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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 Re-Farmer

Another hit of snow

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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.

It’s a good day to hunker down, that’s for sure.

The Re-Farmer

Can I just win the lottery, now?

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Oy. What a morning!

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!

The Re-Farmer

Light snow, huh?

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Ah, ya gotta love the weather forecasts.

Today’s forecast for our area was 1C/34F with less than 1cm/0.4in of snow.

The plan was to head into the city with one of my daughters for their own separate grocery shopping trip. We weren’t planning to leave until noon, so I had plenty of time to do the morning rounds and check the trail cam files.

The outside cats were almost completely out of water in their heated water bowl again – and that thing holds a lot of water!

Also, they have a definite preference for Costco’s Kirkland brand of kibble. :-D

The deer have really dug up our compost heap! Not sure what they’re after under there, that they haven’t already eaten.

Nosencrantz and Butterscotch are absolutely luxuriating in their convalescence. We could bring Nosencrantz indoors right now, but Butterscotch has another few days, at least, before we can let her outside.

She hasn’t shown any interest in going outside since the surgery! What a complete reversal!

Beep Beep and Fenrir, meanwhile, spent the night isolated with me and seem to be doing very well, so they are no longer being kept apart from the other cats.

Beep Beep, unlike Butterscotch, did no go through a “catonality” change, and is still a bully towards the other cats. :-D Nothing bad enough to be a concern, but she does keep herself right up there on the pecking order!

By the time I was done my rounds and heading in, it had started to snow. After a while, it got heavy enough that we were reconsidering our trip to the city.

I’ve gotten to be a wuss in my old age. If I can avoid driving in inclement conditions, I usually will. Back in the day, I had no issues driving through blizzards severe enough that highways were closed, while we were on them. Not anymore!

Meanwhile, as I watched the visibility drop on the security camera’s live feed, the weather app was telling me, “rain will continue for 104 minutes.”

Rain??

Not where we were!

We did decide to head out, and the conditions were much better than I feared. About half way to the town my mother lives in, where we stopped for gas, it switched from snow and snow covered highway, to rain and mostly clear.

The rain continued all the way to the city, and we didn’t hit snow again until we passed back though my mother’s town, though by then the snow had moved further south and was a lot heavier than when we were heading out.

The wet road conditions made for some very messy driving; especially when crossing paths with oncoming semi’s. Thankfully, it’s been warm enough that the windshield washer fluid in my mother’s car was thawed! It had frozen before I had a chance to put winter fluid in. I had still topped it up with winter fluid, so that would have helped, too.

Once home and unloading the car, I paused to top up the windshield fluid again (rated to -35C/-31F!), which is when my husband popped out to ask me to unlock the gate again. We’d just received a call that a delivery was on its way, but the driver couldn’t find our physical address. Neither the name nor the numerical designation for our road comes up on GPS. So I took care of the gate, then topped up the washer fluid before putting my mom’s car in the garage (it barely fits in the addition it’s parked in) when the delivery van pulled in. The driver was very cheerful and we chatted a bit about our issue with road names. Then he had to back his way out of the driveway, because with my mother’s car out, he didn’t have room to turn around in the snow.

Which was fine, right up until he had to stop at the end of the driveway to make sure the road was clear.

With how warm it was today, the rear tires sank right into the plow ridge and he got stuck!

Of course, we had snow shovels handy, but I ended up having to dig out the steel garden shovel again. The plastic snow shovel just couldn’t do the job there! Thankfully, he got out very quickly, though he joked about how common this actually is, with rural deliveries!

The delivery was the 14’x200′ (4.3mx30.5m) netting we ordered, to use as temporary critter fencing around our garden areas this year. We will be ordering a second one, probably next month, since we have so much area to cover. Plus, we’ll be cutting pieces to size to create covers for individual beds, too.

I’m quite happy to have our first roll in. Even if, for some reason, we can’t order a second one right away, it’s enough for us to put a perimeter around most areas we will be planting in. The only real concern is that, being just plastic netting, if the raccoons decide they want in, they can tear right through it.

I look forward to when we can build permanent protection for our garden beds!

I’m glad we did make the trip today, instead of putting it off again. Tomorrow, I’ll be dropping the van off to get the brakes tested, and to see what needs to be done next. With the rain today, it’s going to make roads slippery, but our area got snow (no matter what the weather apps said!), so the road to town should not be too bad. The day after tomorrow, we’re supposed to get even warmer, and get 10-15cm/4-6in of snow – or 5-10cm/2-4in, depending on which app I look at! Either way, it’s not a day I’d want to be driving to the city again. The less such trips, the happier I will be!

I’m quite content in my hermitage.

The Re-Farmer