He was very happy to see me this morning. So happy, he flung himself onto the ground at my feet, rolling around so I could pet his belly!
Right. On. His. Injury.
*shudder*
He was moving around so much, it was hard to get pictures!
To refresh his water, I decided to quickly open the doors to outside and toss out the old water, he actually made a run for the door! This boy wants to go outside!
I’m sure his misses his brothers, Nutmeg and Creamsicle baby! But he will have his sister, Cabbages, and a whole lot of other cats to play with, when this is over.
This morning, I called the vet clinic to ask about having him fixed while he is with them tomorrow. The last thing we’re going to do is get him all patched up, then send him back outside where the coyotes and other predators can get him. She talked to one of the doctors who said that yes, they can, but first they will see how the amputation surgery goes since, obviously, that’s the priority. If that goes well, he’ll get a quick snip while he is still under.
We also talked about the financing.
Full disclosure and transparency, here.
Thanks to the generosity of so many, both through the Ko-fi fundraising, and direct donations, we have enough to cover the lower end of the estimate. Ko-fi works through PayPal, and I set up new accounts for both at the same time. The PayPal account is linked to completely separate bank account from our personal stuff. The down side is, PayPal takes several business days to transfer funds. Plus, they went and put the first donation we received on hold. Apparently, that’s a normal thing for them to do with new accounts, but it may be another 7 business days before the hold is removed. Only then can it be transferred, which can take several more days.
So we will also be looking into the third party financing option. We may not need it if the total is on the low end of the estimate, but if it’s on the high end, we will.
With that in mind, if you do wish to support Ginger Snap’s surgery, you can do so by buying him a coffee (donations can be as low as $1 Canadian), sharing or reblogging this post, or the Ko-fi fundraising page.
Many thanks!
The Re-Farmer
Update: Well, I tried to go through the pre-approval process with the third party financing. It didn’t work! I got stuck right at the beginning, with our address. It seems we don’t exist. Their system couldn’t even accept our little hamlet, never mind our box number or our physical address. I wasn’t even getting any error messages. It just kept looping back to the address input area.
I called the clinic to let them know it wasn’t going to happen. It turns out, we’re not the only clients they’ve had, who have had this problem.
This was just in case things did not go well and the bill ended up on the high end of the estimate. They are aware of the situation, and have been really awesome about it. In fact, they’ve been pretty awesome, all around!
I figured I’d get this out as quickly as I could, because I know people are interested!
While checking on him yesterday, the sun room was actually getting too warm! So we turned on the ceiling fan and opened the inner door to the old kitchen, so cooler air could circulate through screen window of the outer door. My daughters have taken on giving him his evening pill. It’s supposed to taste like cat treats, so they give it to him with a couple of treats, and have had no problem with him eating it.
This morning, he was eager for attention – and very curious about my phone when I tried to take pictures!
He is eating and drinking well, though he ignores the wet cat food. It was chilly by morning, so I made sure he got some nice warm water. When I brought warm water for the cats outside throughout the winter, Ginger would be the one coming over and drinking out of the jug while I knocked the ice out of the water bowls and cleaned out the heated water bowl. He’s a big fan of warm water! :-D
I was somewhat concerned about the litter pan still looking mostly undisturbed. This morning, however, I found that he’s been using the spilled dirt I’d swept into a pile, after Potato Beetle knocked a plant pot over,during his own convalescence in the sun room. The sun room has concrete floors, so I’m not too worried. Once things are warm enough and the yard is dry enough, we basically empty the sun room every spring to clean the floor and get things re-organized. This is where we keep our frequently used yard tools, as well as the critter food, while also keeping my late father’s swing bench open so we can just sit in there and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. The cats love that swing bench! We will also be it as a green house for our seedlings, too, once I pick up a shelf to hold them all, and the overnight temperatures are warmer.
Since we are also using it to isolate injured kitties, we’ve got leftover pieces of rigid insulation on the floor in front of the box bed, and under the food and water, so little paws don’t get too cold on the concrete!
Yeah. We’re sucks, when it comes to the cats! :-D
Did I mention he wanted attention?
Poor baby is lonely! He’s used to at least having his brothers, Nutmeg and Creamsicle Jr, to play with. And he does want to play! It’s hard to visit with him because he gets so excited, and starts moving around too much. Of course, we can’t not visit him, because we need to check on him and give him some loving.
While the temperatures were warm this morning – it was 1C/34F when I headed out – there was a very cold wind! I’m so glad we have been able to keep Ginger in the sun room. We weren’t able to, when his mom ended up with stitches. Yes, he was a regular user of the heated cat shelter, but clambering in and out of there would not have been good. That and Nicky the Nose has been showing up again, and he’s been starting fights with the males. Not so much with Ginger and his litter mates. They were born so late in the season last year, they aren’t sexually mature yet, and not a threat to him. We think he might be responsible for Potato Beetle’s injury, though, and with things warming up, the baby boys are going to start being interested in the girls soon, and Nicky is not going to like that. We chase Nicky off when we see him but, just this morning, I saw him out my window, slinking away through the trees towards the empty farm across the road.
Anyhow.
Ginger is doing remarkably well. As he moves around, he does keep trying to put weight on that leg. !!! Thank goodness I’m not squeamish, because every time he does, things move in ways they just aren’t meant to! Of course, when he sits or lies down, he has no way to move the leg out of the way, so… yeah. Not pleasant. At least he doesn’t seem to be in pain.
He will be having a much easier time after the surgery, that’s for sure!!
Which leads me to our fundraising promo. Ginger’s surgery is scheduled for 2 days from now. If you would like to help support him, you can buy him a Ko-fi (donations can be as little as $1 Canadian), share and/or reblog this post, or share the Ko-fi page.
First up, I want to say how much we all appreciate the wonderful comments, feedback, support and reblogs we about poor little Ginger!
If you click on the button on the top of the right hand column, or click here, you can see the current fundraising status. At the time of this writing, 20% of the goal has already been reached, just overnight! We are so thankful. <3
I had checked on Ginger last night, just through the door from the old kitchen, so as not to disturb him too much. It took me a while to spot him! Then I realized there was this little nose peeking out from under the flap of the “nest” we made in a box, back when Potato Beetle was convalescing in the sun room. He had a nice, soft pillow for a bed in a nice warm nest.
When I checked through the bathroom window this morning, I found him sitting in front of the door to the old kitchen, oddly curled up with his forehead on the floor. ??? A few moments later, he started to tip over, then jarred himself awake. :-D It was like one of those videos you see, where a kitten is so tired, it falls asleep while sitting up and starts to fall over.
When I checked on Ginger this morning, he was still by the door and didn’t want to move, even as I had to open the door over him! He just squished down, then became very interested in the old kitchen! Which we are not going to let him into, right now.
I’m happy to say that Ginger was looking really good this morning. He was moving around, wanting attention and pets (!!) and meowing at me. I actually wish he wasn’t moving around quite so much. Seeing that leg flopping around the way it does is rather horrific. It isn’t stopping him, though!
He also seems to have a very good appetite. The dry kibble bowl was empty. He didn’t seem to have eaten any of the wet cat food we’d also left for him. I thought maybe he didn’t like the pate, so I brought a can of shredded cat food for him. He still preferred the dry kibble.
While the sun room is warmer than outside, I had considered turning on the terrarium heater bulb we had set up for Potato Beetle, when it was still much colder. Unfortunately, we have no way to set it higher. I didn’t want to risk him stumbling and falling against it, so for now, there’s no heat source for him. Thankfully, the weather is getting warmer every day for the next while, so he should be just fine.
The sun room is where the cat, bird and deer food is stored, and normally I’d be going in and out through the outside doors. We don’t want other cats running in with Ginger right now, so the plan was to do things the long way around; go into the sun room through the old kitchen, collect the containers of feed, take them through the house to the main entry, then head outside with the warm water.
That’s a lot of containers to get through the door, while trying to make sure none of the inside cats make a run for it!
I did the short version of my morning rounds, because I wanted to call the vet clinic when they opened.
I had company.
Ginger’s brothers, Nutmeg (camouflaged in the grass) and Creamsicle Jr. followed along. Butterscotch did, too, but she stayed well back in the trees.
Potato Beetle emerged as well, and paused to say hello to Nutmeg. :-)
I had a chance to check his back leg. The wound is still quite visible, but all closed up and the fur the vet shaved away is starting to grow back. There is no sign of a limp, and he doesn’t seem to be favoring the leg in any way, so all seems very well.
For those new to this blog, Butterscotch and Potato Beetle both had trips to the vet this winter. We found a gash inside one of Butterscotch’s back legs. While she is one of the friendlier yard cats, she does not like to be indoors, and doesn’t even like to be in the sun room. We’d converted the sun room into a maternity ward a couple of years back, in hopes of socializing and adopting out kittens, but once those babies were born, she kept breaking out. She tore right through the screen at the top of the door that was there at the time. So while we were eventually able to get her into a cat carrier and get her to the vet for some stitches, we were not able to keep her isolated as she healed. Her wound was a clean cut, so it is likely she had fallen over something sharp. Sadly, there are lots of sharp things all over the farm! It may not have even happened here, as she does visit the neighbouring farms.
Potato Beetle then showed up with blood on his fur one day, but it took us a couple of days before we could find where it was from. He had clearly been in a fight. By the time we could get him to the vet, the wound had already started to heal. He did not need stitches, but he did get cleaned up and was given some antibiotics. We set him up in the sun room for a few days to heal, with a nice warm nest to sleep in, and the terrarium heater bulb nearby. Which also kept his water from freezing! Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that now. The outside water bowls still freeze over, but in the sun room, Ginger’s water bowl was just fine.
When I got back to the house, I found Rosencrantz (on the right, drinking water) had come out. She’s been hanging around more often lately, which is good. Junk Pile cat (with Potato Beetle, in the kibble house) doesn’t seem to wander off like Rosencrantz, her mother, but she still won’t let us anywhere near her. Her mystery baby is even shier, but at least we see her? him? in the cat house, snuggling with Nostrildamus (aka: Nosey).
I haven’t seen Nosey for several days. I am concerned. Hopefully, he’s just out visiting the neighbouring farms and discovering some lady cats.
For those who are new, you can read up about how we got our current cat house here and here. It now has a ceramic terrarium heater bulb to keep the kitties warm in winter. You can also read about the kibble house we built, here and here. (All links should open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place. :-) )
I just got a call from the vet while I was writing this!
I’d called after I finished my rounds and talked about booking the surgery and payment options. They just called back and the surgery is going to happen on Sunday, three days from now.
Gosh, that’s a long time for Ginger, but it’s the earliest they can do. We’ll be dropping him off at 8:15 in the morning.
Ginger will be staying in the sun room, of course, which will make it much easier to have him fasting for the required 8 hours before surgery.
As for payments, they don’t do it themselves, but contract out to another company. It’s all on a pre-approved basis, so they would have paperwork for us to fill out, they do the surgery, and then we’d make arrangements with this company.
:-/
With that in mind, if you wish to help with Ginger’s vet bills, you can do so by going to the Ko-fi page, or even just reblogging and sharing this post or sharing the Ko-fi page.
Meanwhile, Ginger is going to be pampered as much as possible!
Poor baby!
The Re-Farmer
ps: my husband is hilarious. He just came over and suggested a name change for Ginger.
This morning, while doing my morning rounds, the kitties all came out to say hello.
Then I saw Ginger.
Walking on three legs.
His right front leg was dangling and swinging in a most unfortunate way.
I tried to go to him, but he “ran” away. I didn’t want to risk losing track of him or hurting him more, so I went inside. My younger daughter was handy, so I told her about it, and she went outside with the cat carrier to try and catch him, while I called the vet clinic.
The doctor was in surgery at the time, so we were told to bring him in for 3pm. My daughter had caught Ginger, and we had a few hours, so we set him up in the sun room, where he would be safe and we could check on him through the bathroom window.
It was encouraging to see that he had jumped up onto the swing bench to nap in a sun spot. Also, his injured leg is not visible in the photo. He’s lying on that shoulder.
I had hopes that it might not be too bad. After all, he wouldn’t be lying on the injury if it was really bad, right?
So we brought him to the vet and my daughter went in, because she can wear a mask. She texted me updates whenever she was able. At first, the doctor thought there might be a dislocation, but they had to sedate him to take x-rays. He is the friendlier of the litter, but he’s not fully socialized, by any means, so it took a bit longer for them to examine him.
What the x-rays revealed was a badly broken elbow. What the doctor thought was a dislocation was a broken bone, sitting on top of another bone.
Not only was it a very bad break, but in a very bad spot.
We were presented with two options. One was a surgical repair. The last time the doctor had gone that route, it ended up costing $2200. The other option was amputation. My daughter texted me while they looked up the cost of that, but my immediate reaction was that an amputation would be far less traumatic.
For the amputation, we got two estimates. Which it would be depends on if it takes 2 or 3 hours to amputate, and how difficult things turn out to be. The price range was just over $1300, to just over $2000.
Ouch.
At that point, they woke him up to give him more pain killers so we could take him home and talk about it. Once in the vehicle, my daughter was able to give me more information. The surgical repair is something they couldn’t even be sure would work, largely due to the placement of the break and how bad it is.
Oh, and we did ask what they thought might have caused the injury. He clearly had not been in any sort of fight. They think it was most likely a really bad fall. :-(
The problem isn’t deciding what action to take, but how to pay for it. Even the money set aside for the garden soil and the emergency fund together would cover the lower amount, but that would screw us over for all our gardening, repair and maintenance plans over the summer. I don’t think I’ll even tell my family about it. Their response would be to have him put down – and not necessarily having the vet do it, for the gun owners.
We’re not going to do that.
In fact, what we’re likely going to do is have him fixed and, after the surgery, turn him into an indoor cat.
Hopefully, the vet will let us make monthly payments. However, I have also done something I have had quite a few people recommend I do over the past several years. I’m loath to do it, but for the kitties, I will.
You may have noticed a new button at the top of the column on the right. We now have a donation page set up with Ko-fi. Anyone who would like to support taking care of the kitties can click and donate any amount they wish.
Currently, I’ve got a fundraising goal of $1300. If it costs more, we should be able to cover it. If we raise more than the goal, it will go towards getting Ginger fixed so we can bring him inside. My older daughter tells me she’s planning to open up to more commissions to raise funds, too. There are only so many she can take at the same time, though.
Tomorrow, we call the vet back and talk about setting up the amputation and payment options. Until then, we’ve set up the sun room for Ginger’s convalescence, and he is there now. In fact, my daughter just have him the first of the treat flavoured painkillers we brought home with him, which he is to get every 24 hours.
Because the swing bench is a favourite place for the cats to nap, we moved it around and set up “stairs” for him to use, so he doesn’t have to jump up onto it, as he had in the earlier photo I took.
The poor broken baby! He’s being remarkably calm and stoic about the whole thing.
Pretty soon, we might have to consider changing his name from Ginger to Tripod! ;-)
I did some unexpected running around yesterday and didn’t have a chance to post. Now that I am, I’m seeing that the title font in my editor has changed. I did not change the default font. I’m not even sure how I would do that!
Well, we’ll see if anything is different after I hit “publish”. So far, it looks the same as always when I hit “preview”.
WordPress gets weird at times!
Anyhow.
For the last couple of mornings, I have been happy to see that the outside cats are using the cat house again. When I head out, I’ve been seeing a big mass of orange in the window and, as I come closer, three heads will pop out to look at me! Unfortunately, when I try to get closer to get a picture, Creamsicle Jr. gets spooked and runs off.
I’m still heating up water for them, which they really seem to appreciate!
Yesterday, the plan was to drive my husband to the clinic to get some blood work done. Unfortunately, he had another really bad pain day, and could not handle the trip. I should see if they will fax the requisition to the lab in the town closer to us. I think he would better handle a 15-20 minute drive, over a 40-45 minute drive!
I still wanted to take the van out on the highway, though, and see about blowing more carbon out of the lines at highway speeds. So I headed out to the Walmart in the small, nearer city to finally pick up the rest of the month’s supply of cat litter and dry kibble.
You can tell that spring is in the air, though, when you start seeing birds in the Walmart!
This little guy was checking out the bird seed aisle, and finding stray seeds to eat! :-D
While there, I hoped to pick up more 750ml canning jars, but there weren’t any. I’d picked up the last one, previously, and it doesn’t look like they got more. So I got more wide mouth 500ml jars (2 cups/half a quart). I think these are the two sizes that will be the most useful for us. The plan is to pick up a case or two every month over the summer, so that we’ll have a good stock available by the time we are harvesting from the garden. Assuming everything goes well and we actually have enough to preserve. I usually go with “hope for the best, plan for the worst” but in this case, we’re also planning for the best!
The van, I’m happy to say, ran well. I even loaded the heavy stuff in the back, rather than the middle, and didn’t feel any of the issues I’d noticed before, that had us splitting our trips and loading the heaviest things in the middle of the van.
Later on, I made sure to call my mother to arrange a grocery shopping trip for her. That was set for this afternoon.
If all had gone to plan, I’d be on the road to her place right now.
Does anything go to plan? :-D
It was quite late when I got a call from my mother. She had suddenly developed pain in her bones. Especially her already damaged knees.
My mother had received the vaccine for Schrodinger’s virus a couple of days before.
She was obviously quite concerned, but as we talked I suggested it might also be because of the fluctuating temperatures. That calmed her down, and she decided she would take some Tylenol, bundle up for the night, and keep the cordless phone by her bedside, just in case.
I’m happy to say she was feeling better today. When she got the shot, she had the usual adverse reactions everyone seems to be getting; her arm was sore, redness and swelling. Fatigue, as well. No allergic reactions, but I wouldn’t expect any from her. She has an iron constitution. Muscle and joint pain, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, vomiting are all on the list of adverse reactions that are being reported. We will have to keep an eye on her after the second shot, as reactions are reportedly worse after that one.
Though she was feeling better, she wasn’t up to actually going out, so I was going to do her shopping for her. We had a bit of a snow storm happening this morning; not unusually cold, but colder, with blowing snow, low visibility, etc. It was supposed to get worse in the afternoon, so I headed out in the morning. I popped in to go over her list with her and be really clear on what she wanted. I noticed things that were not on the list and asked her about them. It’s always hard to shop for someone else. Especially when shopping is often a “see what’s good” or “whatever’s on sale” situation.
There were a few things on her list she would have picked up at the pharmacy, but the pharmacy kicked me out because they don’t honour medical mask exemptions, so she said she would get those items, later. She’s not willing to pay the grocery store prices for the same things. :-D
Just me and her list did make for a very quick trip! I was even able to stay for a short visit, which I haven’t been able to do for a while.
So she is doing all right, but is very tired and will be getting lots of rest for the next while. My siblings and I are going to have to watch not to pester her with phone calls to check up on her! :-D
Thankfully, the local weather has actually improved; whatever was being forecast for this afternoon seems to be missing up.
In my last post, I wrote about the destruction wrought by our indoor cats. To counter that, here is a photo of an adorable little outside cat.
Meet Ginger, of the rubber spine!
He followed me around while I was doing my rounds, and kept flinging himself onto the ground in front of me, rolling about like some sort of Polychaete worm. Adorable!
Inside cat destruction is not, however, what fried my brain.
I call a call from my brother this morning, to talk about upcoming court dates. I’ve got my application for a restraining order against our vandal coming up this month, and the court date for his vexatious litigation against me in July. It took him a while, but my brother had managed to finally upload a file of phone messages our vandal had left with our mother. I already had the most recent ones. These ones were basically from the past year.
I just spent that last few hours transcribing them.
The transcription itself is it’s own challenge, with having to go back and listen to things repeatedly, trying to figure out what was being said. I’m pretty sure he was drunk for some of these calls, but in others… well, he just doesn’t sound all there, words and phrases are messed up, and there is some stuttering as he was clearly trying to find the words to say.
The other thing was, of course, the subject matter. Though my mother has no part in my applying for a restraining order against him, he keeps accusing her of trying to put him in jail. In fact, it’s a vast conspiracy of my mother, me and my siblings, and the RCMP, all trying to put him in jail. Because we’re evil. And my late father and brother are watching this from heaven in disapproval. Also, apparently, my mother has given the farm to me. All of it. Never mind that my younger brother has already inherited a third of it. And we only love my mother for her money (that apparently she had loads of. Somewhere). And did you know that there are people being killed and raped around the world, but here she is, trying to put him in jail?
This dude needs psychiatric help. I realize my mother got these calls over the span of a more than a year, counting the most recent ones, but I was listening to all of them, one after the other. And he is absolutely obsessed with me, and me being here on the farm, not allowing him on the property or access to all the stuff he thinks belongs to him. The fact that he was caught in the act of breaking the gate, then trying to break it again, on top of his pilfering over the years before we moved out here, never came up. Instead, he would say things like “why are you doing this to me?”
Yeah. Brain. Fried.
I need to go distract myself with something more sane.
While doing my rounds this morning, I spotted Junk Pile cat at the bottom of this icicle hanging from the rain barrel diverter, drinking from the little well created at the bottom. Even though we were still a few degrees below freezing, there was a trickle of ice melt, making it’s way down and creating a pool.
By the end of the afternoon, it was so beautifully warm! We easily went several degrees above the 0C/32F forecasted. Things were enthusiastically melting, and the outside cats are loving it!
We did city trips to stock up, two days in a row. As productive as those trips are, they leave us feeling completely drained. Today, I actually felt productive, with just a couple of short trips.
I had intended to go to the post office yesterday, and pick up deer feed and bird seed while I was at it. I ended up skipping it, because I just didn’t have the spoons left. Which turned out to be a good thing, since I completely lost track of what day it was. I thought it was Tuesday, but it was Wednesday, which meant the store – and the post office inside – had closed at noon. So today, I combined errands, starting off by heading into town to refill our 18.9L/5 gallon jugs of drinking water (we have 3, and refill when 2 are empty). For this, we go to our usual grocery store. Since that happens to be across the street from our garage, I swung by to talk to the mechanic. The van has been running well, so I asked about maybe just resetting the error codes. He suggested I call him on Monday (he was working on a vehicle at the time) and he’ll schedule me to bring the van in. Since it’s likely the crud he couldn’t reach to clean, come loose and getting stuck in the new EGR valve, he’ll take it off and give it a clean.
That arranged, I headed to the grocery store with the water jugs and, since I was there anyhow, I went through the fresh produce and meats sections, so see how things looked, and what was on sale. I’m sure we got a sale flier in the mail, but we don’t drive to the post office every day, so I tend not to see them before I actually go to the store. I was very happy to see asparagus bunches for only $2 each – they’re usually about three times that price – and grabbed some.
Well, that was just the start. Then I noticed other really good sale prices. It turned out they had some massive sales on a meat in particular. Some were half price, or even better. And no, this wasn’t old meat, but the fresh cuts they process themselves.
I ended up going through all the aisles and stocked up!
A lot of things that go on sale tends to be stuff we pretty much never buy, but this time I was able to pick up a whole lot of things we actually do buy, some regularly, and others only rarely or as a treat. I didn’t go nuts or anything, but with the city shopping we already did, our freezer, fridge and cupboards are now the most well stocked they have ever been!
I came to refill water jugs and left with a cart full! :-D
Having a hard time finding where to put all the food is a good problem to have!
I finished in town too quickly, though. The post office closes for an hour and a half around lunch time, so I just had to play a bit of Pokemon Go before heading back. :-D
The store the post office is in is not only where I pick up our bird seed and deer feed (they also carry the best hams), but it’s also a liquor store. Our older daughter has a birthday this month, and her gift came in. (not an affiliate link) So I picked up a case of Jamaican lager for her to use her gift with! We don’t really celebrated our birthdays on the days themselves, so she got her gifts right away. :-D
So now we are stocked up in food, deer feed, bird seed and beer. :-D
Today is also a day the dump is open for a few hours in the evening, and with our van up and running, we were finally able to load up all the garbage and recycling. We tried to keep up with it, using my mother’s little car, but not a lot fits in it, and we just weren’t able to make multiple trips per week. Or even one trip per week. More like one trip every two or three weeks. :-/
Using the van, one trip, and we were all caught up! We ended up going to the new pit, rather than the household bins I normally use. Normally, we would drive into the pit, but with the ice and snow, they seem to have closed that access off. What they have instead is a sort of parking area, where you can back your vehicle up to the pit (there are concrete blocks to make sure no one drives over the edge!) and the garbage is just tossed down the hole.
Oddly, people have somehow still managed to stack up a huge pile of garbage at the edge. It took no effort at all to make sure the bags rolled down into the pit itself, but nope. In the middle of the dumping area, people left their garbage piled high, right up to the concrete blocks.
So very strange.
It felt so good to finally get that job done!!!
Oh, and I had a nice little surprise this morning. My tax return came in. We won’t have to wait until April or May to get that garden soil! I called the company to arrange it and left a message. If all goes well, we’ll have the soil before the end of this month. I should be able to pick up a chain saw this month, too! I can hardly wait! Garden soil first, though. :-)
Just a couple of relatively minor things, but yeah… it made the day feel so much more productive!!
These are the temperatures, screencapped just minutes before I started this post.
That’s right. We’re at -28C/-18F with a wind chill of -32C/-26F. Actually, the wind chill was reading at -35C/-31F when I did the (short version!) morning rounds! I only saw Potato Beetle when I opened the sun room. Not a single other cat came out. He was more than content to let me put him back in the sun room and close the door!
This isn’t another Polar Vortex. This is Nature saying, “Welcome to March. Here’s a kick in the teeth for ya!”
In less than an hour from now, I’ll be leaving to bring the van in to get looked at. This isn’t an appointment. This is a drop off so he can look at it in between his appointments. Which means I have to hang out in town for who knows how many hours, until he’s had a chance to check it and gives me a call. And because of the flippin’ Schrodinger’s virus restrictions, the only place I can go to is the grocery store across the street, because there isn’t a coffee shop or restaurant or anywhere indoors where anyone can just sit anymore. Keep in mind that this municipality hasn’t had a single case. Nor has ours. Nor has the municipality my mother lives in. There was only one person who turned out to have a false positive in the entire area, back in the summer. In fact, in looking at the official government stats for all cause deaths in this province, the pandemic never hit us. 2020 is indistinguishable from any year from 2014 on.
I like when our Sunday day of rest turns out to be an actual day of rest!
While doing my rounds this morning, I let Potato Beetle out of the sun room. Today, he ignored this personal food and water bowls in favour of the outside ones.
I love how Nosy likes to just sit in the window, napping. :-)
Potato’s wound is looking better as well. He didn’t want to go back into the sun room when I was done my rounds, so I left the doors propped open so he could go in later, if we wanted to. We were at a fairly mild -15C/5F (though with a wind chill of -28C/-18F!), so I knew he would be okay. We’ll keep him in the sun room for one more night, so when my daughters went out for a walk this afternoon and spotted him, the put him back in. Things are supposed to warm up quite a bit, after tonight, and he’s healing up well enough that we don’t need to take extra precautions.
Beyond that, it was just a day of online church (second Sunday of Lent), keeping up with family, and watching the parade of deer visiting the feeding station! It looks like the same group of five came back a couple of times, as well as a pair and a singleton showing up. There were so many showing up at once, I didn’t even try to take pictures with the DSLR set up in the living room. The zoom lens can’t get so many deer at once, I didn’t feel like switching lenses. Too many shedding cats around! :-D
Tomorrow, I bring the van in to the garage to see what can be done about that noise from the power steering pump. We were just going into the cold snap when I brought it home from last time he worked on it, and it hasn’t been driven since. We’ve only run the engine a few times, and the noise was there, so the cold is the only thing I can think of that could have caused the problem. Hopefully, it is something that can be fixed quickly, so we can do our monthly shop, and pick up that warranty replacement hot water tank! I feel like we’re on borrowed time with the current one.
Hopefully, this replacement will last more than 2 years. :-/
After getting teased with spring, the temperatures lurched back downwards last night.
Also, I am SO tired of our intermittent internet. It took me forever to get any of my weather apps to load! We’ll be able to switch back to the primary account soon. Hopefully, that will be better again. :-/
As I write this, we’re still at -24C/-11F, but the wind chill has “warmed” up to -33C/-27. It was pretty steady like that, all night.
I am really looking forward to that 6C/43F two Sundays from now!!
While doing my rounds this morning, I opened up the sun room to let Potato out for a bit, if he wanted. Along with the warm water, I had a treat for the kitties. I’d kept the meat juices and dregs from a roasting pan. Usually, I’d use it as part of the liquid for a soup, or make a gravy out of it, but this was onion free, and safe for cats. The juices had gelled, so I added warm water to melt it and brought it out for the cold kitties.
They were so excited for the treat!!! Cats that would normally stay away from each other were all pushing their way into the bowl, ignoring the container of warm water they usually go for, while I knocked the ice out of the water bowls. With the temperature fluctuations, the metal bowls are in melted depressions of ice, and I had to use a chipper to get one of them out! LOL
I was happy to see that the terrarium heat bulb was enough to keep Potato Beetle’s water from freezing. There was just a bit of ice on the water surface furthest from the bulb.
Once the water was taken care of, I fought some kitties off the bowl of meat juices and split it between the various food bowls. More room for more cats to have a treat! The very last bits in the bowl, which had chunks of meat in it, went into Potato’s bowl in the sun room. He had gone outside after I’d opened the door, but it didn’t take much for him to go back in! We are a bit concerned about him being alone and lonely in there, but he seems to be content over the whole situation.
I tried to get a picture of his wound, but he wouldn’t stay still, so this was the best I could get! Now that the fur is shaved, we can see that it’s a rather large puncture wound – and there is a smaller one, next to it! It’s drying up and scabbing over nicely, though. We’ll keep Potato in the sun room for a few more days. Once it warms up again, it should be okay for him to be outside with his little nekkid patch.
I’m not sure what we’ll do if he wants to stay in the sun room, though! We’ve tried propping the doors open, but then we caught Nicky the Nose in there, asserting his dominance. :-(
I wonder if that old sling shot I found in the garage is still usable… :-/
Since Potato was content in the sun room, I closed him up again and continued my rounds.
I had lots of company.
I had five of them! Butterscotch and Nostrildamus, the spice boys and Rolando Moon, all came along.
Then I turned around and there was number six.
Creamsicle Jr. many not want us coming anywhere near him, but that doesn’t stop him from following me around!
Unfortunately, this lurch into colder temperatures has been very rough on my husband’s pain levels (the added medications are helping, but not much at this point), and this morning, his TENS machine just stopped working. It seems one of the wires has … broken? I don’t know. He’s in a lot of pain, so his tolerance to try and figure it out is out the window. It’s an older machine, so I don’t know if we can get new wires for it anymore. The plug in port is universal, so we should be able to. I’ll have to do some looking.
But it will wait until later. I just got a call from my sister in law. She’s dropped my brother off to see my mother, and is on her way to deliver the pressure cooker! Time to go open the gate. :-)
The Re-Farmer 