I just had to pause for a picture when I saw these guys, watching me when I came outside this morning.
These guys know well enough to stay out of the wind, even if they can see fresh food and water is about to be dispensed! :-D
Except this little Spice Boy, who has a thing for drinking out of the water jug. He prefers this over drinking from a bowl! :-D
Also, those bulk sized Orville Redenbacher popcorn containers are the handiest things. The plastic is really strong, and they are a very useful size. We’ve got some with the bottoms cut off and the lids in place, that I use to scoop and carry critter feed. I used to use a metal pitcher for their water, but this holds a lot more water, and the handle design is easier to carry with one hand and not slosh while opening and closing doors. Used to put them in recycling, but now I keep them because they’re so useful!
As I was finishing up my rounds, Butterscotch made an appearance, and even let me carry her!
Well, sort of carry her. :-D
She still moves around too much for me to get a good look at her wound, but from what I can glimpse, it’s still looking good. Understandably, she seems uncomfortable sitting in the snow, as much from the lack of fur around it as for the wound itself!
We’ve got another relatively mild day today, though winds are certainly making it chillier. We were supposed to get snow this afternoon, but a storm passed through to the south of us, last night. We got light snow and winds, in our area. Now, it’s just winds. I’m good with that. We need to make a trip to the pharmacy this afternoon, which is when the weather was originally predicted to hit us. We’ll just have to watch out for ice, high winds and deer, and not the edges of a snow storm, too! :-D
I am soooo appreciating our mild winter. The last 3 since we moved here got so brutally cold. We’ll be getting colder next week, according to the long range forecasts, but it’s more of a normal cold than what we had in previous years.
I have no doubt the wild critters are appreciating it, too! Much better chances of survival. With Butterscotch having a little of kittens so late in the season, it is a relief for them and their safety, too.
After getting Butterscotch’s wound stitched, and keeping her in the house overnight, we’ve been keeping an eye on her to make sure she is doing okay. As much as possible, anyhow.
She is not making it easy!
I had to zoom in, just to get a picture of her NOT letting me come close, this morning. :-D You can sort of see her skinny chicken leg, where the fur has been shaved off on the inside of her right leg. Her tail hides most of it.
She did eventually come over for some pets, though.
She will take attention on her own terms, thankyouverymuch!!
With her constant moving, it was hard to get a look. I had to giggle at myself, “chasing” a cat around, trying to look under her butt.
She seems to be moving around normally, and not favoring the leg more than the other, so that’s good sign that she is not in pain and the injury is healing up.
Other cats were much more friendly.
Nosey is such a sweet cat!
Interesting thing about him is that he wouldn’t come near us for the longest time. He sister would let us come near, which is how we were finally able to snag her and bring her inside before she could get pregnant. Once his sister was no longer around, he became much more willing to let us near, and now he’s one of the friendliest of yard cats!
There was only one problem, though. I had a crowd of cats following me as I did my rounds, which is usual when it’s wonderfully mild as it is today. Butterscotch tends to pick fights with the other cats, but this morning, after she hissed at Potato Beetle when he got too close, he actually went at her! As I moved to break it up, Butterscotch ran off, but Potato stayed, intently sniffing at the snow. Some of her kittens came by, and they started sniffing the snow, too.
When I got close enough, I could could see fresh urine in the snow, and they were very interested in it! My guess is, with the antibiotics and other medications she was given, it smells very different.
Butterscotch, meanwhile, did not go far!
There she is, with her baby. :-D
I love how the cats peek under the garage door like that!
As much as I was able to see of Butterscotch’s wound, it looks like everything is going well. Which is a relief. There is concern of her getting aggressive with the other outside cats, but that would be much more of a problem inside than outside. :-/ Ah, well. She’s a hardy cat and has probably survived far worse, before we even moved out here!
We ended up keeping Butterscotch indoors, overnight. After 2 hours in the carrier, she was certainly more active and alert after the anesthetic wore off, but she was totally cracked out! We did not feel it would be safe for her to be outside, yet.
She got the basement all to herself for the night. The inside cats were most upset over the closed door! :-D
This morning, my daughter got her into the carrier again (after checking her out) and I took her outside and let her go.
I could tell she was feeling better. As soon as one of her kittens came up to her, she batted him upside the head!
As you can tell, he wasn’t too bothered by that. :-D
Her wound looks good, and she did not seem to be favoring the leg as she walked around. She was soon in the kibble house, having a snack.
When I first let her out of the carrier, she was all about getting the pets, but after that, she wouldn’t let me near her!
After bringing the cat carrier back in, the inside cats were all over it, sniffing away. We’d put a small, soft crocheted mat inside for a bed, and I took it out and put it back into the box bed it’s normally in. Before long, I found Cabbages and Nicco – both Butterscotch babies – obsessed with sniffing it!
My daughters had started to talk about the possibility of trying to keep Butterscotch indoors, but she is much happier outside, and I think even the inside cats were pretty disturbed by her presence. Except Beep Beep, who simply ignored her! :-D
She is still recovering from the anesthetic, so we’ve been told to keep her in the carrier for a couple of hours. She is on a 24 hour painkiller, the sutures will dissolve on their own in 3 weeks, and she has the 14 day antibiotic. We’ve been told what to watch out for, but they did everything they could to prepare her for being outdoors as she recovers.
For now, she is in the carrier behind me. We had to ban all the cats from the room, except Beep Beep, who is sleeping and has no curiosity about her “sister” in the carrier. (For all I know, they may be sisters. Or mother and daughter. Or no relation at all! LOL) As we supervised, a parade of cats came by to sniff at the carrier, from all sides, and the top! Which was fine when they were just sniffing. Nicco came to see her mom, but Cabbages had no interest and ran away from the crowd. It was when cats started hissing at Butterscotch that we had to put a stop to it and send them away.
After a couple of hours in the carrier, if she seems alert enough, we will gently transition her back outside.
I suspect she will be quite eager to get away again!
I spotted movement in an unexpected place while doing my rounds this morning, and just had to try for some photos!
Yes, that is a cat butt.
This old shed’s roof is falling apart, and it looked like she was trying to decide if she could jump down through one of the holes.
Wise kitty (known as Thickalous, I am told) has decided not to jump into the vast empty space below!
What a funny girl (or boy. We’re not sure).
After this, however, I saw something not funny at all. Butterscotch had followed me as I did my rounds, but when I came closer, she moved away from me.
Which is when I saw blood on her fur, inside her right hind leg.
She was also favoring the leg as she walked. She did allow me to pick her up, eventually, but would not let me look at the wound. I let the girls know and they went out together. Between the two of them, they were able to find a gash in her leg, about 2 inches long and gaping about half an inch. It was clean, however, and not bleeding.
I phoned the vet and explained the situation, including that this is an outdoor cat who does NOT want to be an indoor cat. She still doesn’t trust us, since we tried to bring her indoors while she was pregnant. Because of the size of the gash, we decided that – if we could get her into a cat carrier – we would bring her in and they would squeeze her treatment in between other appointments.
Thankfully, a dear friend gifted us with a hard sided cat carrier. Aside from leaving it out for a while so the inside cats could get used to it, this is the first time we have used it. Butterscotch would have clawed her way right out of our soft sided carriers!
The first thing was to find her. My daughter eventually found her sitting on one of the rotted pallets in the junk pile. She didn’t seem to to want to be there, but also didn’t want to jump down onto the snow! My daughter was able to get close enough to scoop her and carry her for a little bit. Butterscotch ended up in the kibble house, which made it easier for my daughter to bring the carrier close and get her in.
She was not happy about it, but we quickly got her into the car and headed out. She calmed down for the drive, but as soon as my daughter picked up the carrier to bring her into the clinic, she started trying to claw her way through a corner of the door.
They were able to give her a quick examination right away. The gash is just above her femoral artery, so they will suture it. Knowing that this is an outdoor cat, they will be giving her a slow release antibiotic that will work for 14 days.
The vet will give us a call when they are done and we can come pick her up.
Poor thing. We’ll see what they tell us when we pick her up, but we’re trying to think of some way to maybe keep her in the sun room for a few days. We can make a warm little den for her in there, and even use the spare ceramic terrarium bulb for warmth, if we have to, but will it work? When we turned the sun room into a maternity ward a couple of years ago, she hated it and tore through the screen on the door to get out. We’ve replaced that door and got the inner door to close properly, so she can’t do it again, but we know how determined she can be. She may be more likely to hurt herself trying to get out, than being out in the first place.
My goodness, it’s even foggier today than it was yesterday!
This is how it looked in the old hay yard, beyond the barn.
It’s enough to make a collapsing old building look all pretty and artsy! :-D
From what I’ve been told, this old log building was a house. The family that owned this property before it was purchased by a relative of my fathers had built a couple of them, before they built the one that is now part of the house we’re living in.
Can you imagine being able to just up an build yourself a new house whenever the need arose? No permits, and just using what materials you had on hand?
Of course, they also had no electricity, running water, insulation or privacy. :-D
Or space. I don’t know how many kids they had, but that little log cabin probably housed at least 6 people, if they were typical of the era. Since they built slightly bigger cabins each time, I’d guess that reflected on increases in the household! :-D
Anyhow…
When I came out to do the food and water for the outside cats, I found myself being watched.
What the camera isn’t showing is that there was fog visible around her! It was dense enough this morning, that I could actually feel it on my face as I walked around the yard. I haven’t felt that since I last lived on the coast!
This kitten is a shy one, unlike her brother, Nostrildamus. This morning, however, while she was definitely nervous, she would not leave the roof while I moved around. I think it was nice and warm on the toes! :-)
Her mother, on the other hand…
… seemed to quite enjoy rolling in the snow!
:-D
In other things…
This afternoon, my daughter and I have telephone doctor appointments, and I was thinking that I might go to the post office after that. The Mingle Masks I orders were supposed to be in by late yesterday. I checked the tracking number to see if it was in.
*sigh*
They are now saying to expect it on the 12th.
This is getting ridiculous. The post office got an electronic shipping notice on the 29th. They did not physically have the package yet, but two days later – on New Year’s Eve, no less – the package physically arrived from another province to the warehouse facilities in the city.
Since then, I’ve seen it listed as in transit with arrival dates of the 5th and the 7th.
Now, according to Canada Post, the parcel got processed just this morning.
In the city.
So how were they listing the package with these earlier expected delivery dates, when apparently they never even processed it yet?
How is it that Canada Post can get a package from one province to another in a couple of days during the holiday rush, but can’t get it from a warehouse in the city, to a post office just an hour out of the city? And now it’s going to be “in transit” for another 4 days?
They can’t blame catching up on the Christmas rush at this point!
Meanwhile, I still have two small orders of seeds from Baker Creek that got shipped before Christmas that have still not arrived. These are physically small enough that they would be regular mail, not parcels.
And no, we can’t blame the increase in the number of parcels because so many more people are ordering online while trapped at home, either. Canada Post was selectively efficient and inefficient, long before this.
Happy Three King’s Day! Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, which is our last day of Christmas. After today, we start taking down our decorations. :-)
It was another mild day today, so when I finished my rounds this morning, I decided to go ahead and dig out the fire pit.
I considered breaking out Spewie, our little electric snow blower, but for the amount of snow we have, I figured it would be easier to just shovel it!
I shoved the snow off what I’m using for a cover, but didn’t bother moving it, yet.
On our warm days, the snow melted enough to create a layer of ice on the surface of the picnic table. We’ll be staying at these mild temperatures for a while, so now that it’s uncovered it should melt away on its own.
I cleared a path to the organized wood pile. That cover did not need to have snow removed from it. I didn’t bother shoveling to the big pile of branches. The little pile has kindling and should be enough for our needs. We may not use the fire pit at all, but at least now we have the option! :-)
I made sure to dig the path to the fire pit wide enough for my husband’s walker, should he feel well enough to join us if we do a cookout.
I was being watched the whole time!
You can see the cats’ favorite way to get under the storage house. The path that goes around the back branches off to a partially broken window they also like to use, as well as through the trees to the path they’ve made to the storage building outside the yard. Well worn little footy paths in the snow! :-)
I also had to dig a wider path around the kibble house. There is a lot of overhang on the roof that is working quite well for the cats, but not so well for a human with a walker! :-D
While clearing around the cat shelter and kibble house, I found this.
It’s a frozen little cat treat! :-D Next to the slab of ice that slid off the “porch” roof of the cat shelter.
Rolando Moon looks like she’s thinking of that delicious frozen treat! :-D
So we will now be able to easily get at the fire pit if we feel like having a cook out, or just a nice fire. I still like the idea of using a fire to thaw the ground out, so we can set up the fire pit grill my brother and his wife got for us!
We do have the BBQ they have us, and the propane tanks does have fuel in it, but I am much more interested in the fire pit, instead! :-D
In other things, I was able to get through to the clinic to make an appointment with my doctor about my breathing issues. After hearing the messages about restrictions before it ever got to a human, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make an appointment at all. The messages say nothing about medical exemptions to mask wearing, of course. Which sucks, since not being able to breathe properly is why I need to see a doctor in the first place. I was able to make a telephone appointment for Friday afternoon, and then it will be up to my doctor to decide if I should come in or not. I made an appointment for my daughter for right after mine, so when he’s done with me, I can just hand the phone over to her. This is the first doctor’s appointment either of our daughters have had since we moved. After seeing how difficult it has been for my husband and I to get good medical care, they have developed a strong distrust of doctors. I can’t say I blame them, either.
But that is done. We shall see what the doctor has to say when the time comes. I am not expecting much of anything, to be honest. No one is getting real health care right now, and our premier has just put us under another 30 days of house arrest, even has many of our politicians have been caught ignoring those restrictions and have gone traveling to tropical places, visiting with their friends and family, and then pretending to be sorry after getting caught.
Thankfully, we are out here in the boonies, and I get to focus on more pleasant things. Right now, I’m working on a project to help me be organized about our gardening, including keeping track of what seeds to start indoors and when.
I never got around to making a new post yesterday, so I’ll start with what I intended to write, yesterday!
While doing my morning rounds, I noticed the step ladder we’d left leaning against the storage building was no longer there. So I trudged my way through the snow, dug it out of where it fell and was half covered by snow, and set it aside in a better spot.
The space under this building is one of the places the cats like to go for shelter, with a well worn path in the grass from there to the yard.
The one in the snow is also well worn and…
… kind of drunk looking! :-D
There are deer tracks all over.
It looks like they found something to dig for under the snow!
This morning, while doing my rounds, I had a whole crowd of kitties following me. I thought it was 6 at first, then a 7th one popped out of the snow at me! :-D
There are three up them, watching me from under the garage door. :-D
There was some odd stuff going on yesterday.
For starters, my breathing issues have lessened… for now. I haven’t had those “gasping for breath” moments I had while driving to and from the city. It’s not gone; while I’m sitting at the computer, for example, my breath does feel slightly restricted, but I’m not suddenly gasping for air like I was earlier. Which is good, but leaves me wondering what the heck is causing it. When the clinic reopens after their lunch break (they don’t book appointments and stop answering the phone for 1 hour, every day), I’ll call about making an appointment for myself and one of my daughters.
I talked to my brother about what our van has been doing. His thoughts lean more towards something restricting air flow, rather than it being the powertrain control module, which is what my thoughts were leaning towards. He’s had critters make nests in his air filter that caused his vehicle to stall. That it’s happening when the van is loaded down makes him thing something might be blocking the exhaust.
I looked around the van yesterday, and plugged in my OBDII reader.
It wouldn’t connect to the ECU.
It hooks up to my phone app with Bluetooth, and that was working fine. I could also look at the “live” readings, with its animated gauges, so I could tell that data was being transferred. I simply could not do a scan for any error codes. It couldn’t talk to the onboard computer.
*sigh*
So I will have to call the garage, probably next week, about bringing it in for a quick look see.
Until then, we will use my mother’s car. Tomorrow I’ll be using it to take my mother out for her errands.
Which leads me to my final odd thing.
My mother got a strange call, yesterday, from a former neighbour. She and her husband used to own one of the quarter sections adjacent to one of ours. Our vandal has been using her as an example of what my mother should be doing with the farm, rather than willing it to my brother (now that she’s transferred ownership already and the farm is no longer part of the will at all, he still seems to think she should give it “back” to him, and that she’s actually given it to me… ???).
Apparently, this woman recently drove past our driveway on the way to visit her sons, saw a camera, and called my mother to ask why there were cameras.
Well, first of all, that’s none of her business. Who cares if there are cameras on someone else’s property? Second, there is no way she saw either camera while casually driving by. They’re close to the gate, but not that close! Someone would have to stop and be actually looking well past the gate to find them. The new one’s camo colours aren’t as good as the basic grey of the old one, but it’s still not that easy to spot unless you know where to look.
My mother knew immediately that our vandal had talked to her and told her to call about it.
The cameras where not the only thing that came up. Apparently, everyone is laughing at us, for taking our vandal to court.
Of course, this person had no idea what was really going on. So my mother told her about the vandalism, and how he somehow feels entitled to the farm and everything on it. This person did help my parents a lot, and we were very close in the past. My parents were also very generous to him, even as his behaviour became more erratic and abusive. They owed him nothing, and considering all the things he’s helped himself to before we moved out here, he owes my mother more!
At the end of the conversation, this former neighbour said she would call our vandal and talk to him.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, my mother got a phone call from him soon after. He had the audacity to start by saying how much he loved her. She called him on the BS, and when he started ranting again, she hung up on him.
*sigh*
And things had been so quiet, here. Unfortunately, what we’ve learned is that the quieter he is, the more likely he’s coming up with nefarious plans in the background. Like filing a suit against me.
One thing these calls my mother got has confirmed for me: our vandal is busily slandering us to whoever will listen, making himself out to be the victim instead of the aggressor. Since most of the people here have known him for decades, and we’ve been here for only a few years, they probably have no reason to doubt him.
Ah, well. We just have to work with the hand we’ve been dealt.
And now that our internet is back, I’ll see if I can post this before it cuts out again!!
I made it into the city today, to attempt our monthly shop.
I am definitely running low on batteries right now. I hate shopping at the best of times.
These days are not the best of times.
But before I explain that, let’s have some cuteness! How about some hugging kitties?
The cats have a habit of taking over my bed. There is always a row of them along my pillows, all mashed together. I just couldn’t resist getting a picture of Leyendecker and Keith all face-smashed together! Then there’s David, hiding his face in his paws… so cute!
Cabbages, I’m happy to say, is completely at home with the rest of the cats. Now if only she would be as comfortable with us humans! We can sometimes pet her and even pick her up, but she is not a fan of human attention, except for the occasional ear skritches.
Her siblings outside are almost more accepting of human attention!
Well, okay. Maybe not.
That doesn’t stop them from following me when I do my rounds!
One of the bigger cats (Nostrildamus, I think) burrowed these hiding places in the snow. From the gate, all I see are little ear tips above the snow, twitching in pounce mode, waiting for another cat to walk past on the driveway. :-D
I got the rounds out of the way early and didn’t even go through the trail cam files, other than to verify that the new camera had thawed out enough to start recording again. Then it was off to the city to see if I could do the monthly shopping.
My first stop was at a particular Walmart where I’ve never had problems before, but I’ve heard of some people having issues every now and then. It’s at least twice the size of the one in the smaller city I went to last month, and better stocked, so I thought it was worth a try.
It wasn’t.
Now, one of the things that had become part of the monthly shopping routine is that we would have breakfast in the city. That’s not really an option anymore, but I figured I would pick up something I could eat in the van at Walmart. I know it’s said, never go shopping while hungry, because you’ll end up buying things you shouldn’t. For me, it’s the opposite. The hungrier I get, the less I want to eat. The less I want to be around food. I’m more likely to walk away without buying anything at all. And if I let it go for too long, the sight and smell of food makes me feel physically ill. I end up having to force myself to eat at least a little bit to get back to having a normal appetite. Along with feeling physically ill by the sight of food, I also start to become … less patient, shall we say, and oddly weepy.
I had not reached that point when I arrived, but my tolerance levels were definitely on the low side.
I came in with my shield, got a cart and, while I was using the hand sanitizer before going through their barrier, the staff from the sanitation station on the inside of the barrier came over and asked if I had a mask. I told her I was medically exempt and that the shield was my compromise. That went back and forth a bit, then she looked over to a little station on the outside of the barrier and said she would get someone. There were two people at that station and one of them came over and asked if I had a mask. I said I can’t wear one. He started to say something about the shield and a mask, but I honestly couldn’t make it out though his mask. :-/ I did hear him say he would get me one and he went back to the station.
I was blocking the way, so I moved over to where he was and told him, I can’t wear a mask. I have a medical exemption. The shield is the best I can do. He ended up handing me a paper ear loop mask and told me to just hang on to it in case the inspectors give me a hard time. Great. Whatever. I turn to the barrier, and there’s a woman on the other side – another customer – who’d been watching me and she started waving a mask still in it’s packaging at me. As best as I could make out, I think she was saying she just bought a mask and… she wanted me to take it? But she just watched me being given a mask just like what she was holding… and I was wearing a shield… so… ???
At that point, I just couldn’t handle it. I’d already put up with hassles from the staff who seemed to think that a person who can’t wear a mask and is wearing a shield instead, should be wearing both. I didn’t need to be hassled by customers, before I even fully entered the store. I turned around and left.
Once back in the van, I messaged my husband and, by the time I finished, I was in a better frame of mind.
The next stop on my list was an international grocery chain that I knew would be okay. And it was. I was able to go in, do my shopping, and no one batted an eye at my shield instead of a mask.
This is the place where I like to pick up our fresh produce in non-Costco sized quantities, as well as stuff in their international aisles that we just don’t find anywhere else. This place is awesome. Best of all, they still have their hot take out food section open, so I was able to get some Chinese food to eat in the van. By then, it was almost noon, and I was reaching the “so hungry I want to throw up” stage.
This is not the place where we pick up the cat food and litter, though, and we were pretty much out of both. Normally, I would have picked up part of that at the Walmart, with the rest at Costco.
I decided to try the Costco. Which is half way across the city from where I was.
When I got there, the parking lot was full, and there was a line all down the side of the building.
It was warmer today, but not that warm.
I found a place to pull over long enough to send an update to my family, letting them know I was going to go to the Walmart in the smaller city I’d gone to last month. They might not have as much inventory, but I knew I would at least be allowed to shop and not get hassled.
So it was, again. I had no issues at all I did get some odd looks from costumers, and at one point, while I was loading the cart with bags of cat food alongside the litter boxes, a couple of ladies in the same aisle were looking at me and whispering at each other. I could make out just enough to know they’d said something about the shield. I was going to be a while, so I shoved my cart into a corner and waited next to it, and they rushed past me. I kept running into them as I continued shopping, and every time we crossed paths, they would give me looks over their shoulders.
*sigh*
By the time I was at the cash desk, however, I was having a really hard time with shortness of breath. I hope those Mingle Masks I ordered come in soon; I’ve been told they don’t create that problem. I started chatting with the cashier and made a point of saying how much I appreciated that I don’t get any hassle there, and mentioned what happened at the other Walmart. Even with her mask, I could see how startled she was. Then she told me about her mother, who basically hasn’t left the house in 8 months. Her mother has PTSD and can’t wear a mask. They were going to try a shield, but haven’t been able to find one (they used to be available at that Walmart, but it looks like a lot of places have simply stopped carrying shields). I ended up telling her about the Mingle Mask and recommending it, based on the experiences of others.
I gotta say, I was really glad to get outside, where I could take the shield off an finally breathe again. I was so disoriented by the end of it, I almost walked away without paying!
By the time I got home, I was too drained for anything else. I must have looked it. As the girls were unloading the van, my older daughter took one look at me, and asked if I was up to going to the dump, or leaving it for later.
We left it for later. It was only open for another hour, and I would have needed more than that to recover enough for another trip out!
We’ll have to make another trip to get the rest; I got most of what we needed, but not necessarily in the quantities we need for the month.
I did splurge when I spotted a few things that I grabbed while I could.
One of them was this soil test kit. We had looked for one last year, and they were completely out of stock all summer. I couldn’t find them anywhere! This has enough to do 40 tests, so we will be able to use it on different areas as we decide on where to plant. It tests the pH, which I already have a meter for that just needs to be stuck into the soil, but it also tests for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. That will be useful information.
The other toy I got was a battery tester.
With the trail cams each using 8 batteries, and those batteries draining much faster in the winter, we have a LOT of batteries accumulating. The dump has a special shed to drop off things like batteries, so we don’t put them in the garbage. Plus, while some batteries may not have enough juice for the trail cams, that doesn’t mean they are actually dead.
The first batch of batteries I’d tested were the frozen one’s I’d switched out of the new trail cam.
They still had full power!
Then I went though the old batteries boxes.
This first batch is all of the batteries that are not usable. Some of which I didn’t even test, since they’d started leaking!!
And yeah, that’s an old DSLR camera battery in there.
Some of the batteries in there were ones that we found while we were cleaning the place up after moving here. I have no idea how old they might be.
The next batch are the batteries that are still usable.
All the batteries in here were either in the green zone, or the very small, yellow “low battery” zone.
All 276 of them.
They may not be usable in the trail cams, but we can use them for other things. Like the battery operated string lights we have in the hallway in place of night lights. We used to use night lights all over the place, but this house doesn’t have many outlets, and there are none at all in the hallway. We rather like being able to see well enough to not trip over cats in the dark, while also not having to turn on the hall light and blinding ourselves at night.
Aside from these, there were some AAA and D cells that had full charge, too.
That little meter has already paid for itself, many times over.
As for me, I’m looking forward to Sunday actually being a day of rest. After today, I need to recharge my own batteries!
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful time last night, kicking out the old year, and bringing in the new. :-)
For us, we don’t normally do a whole lot. Living away from town or city celebrations is quite within our preferences! We had good food, each other’s company, and the entertainment of cats that were very interested in those good food smells! ;-)
This morning, as I went into the sun room, I discovered one of the spice boys in there! He would have been there since yesterday morning. :-( Not a very good New Year’s Eve for him!
Normally, when a cat gets accidentally closed up in there, we hear a ruckus or meowing and know to let them out.
We heard no such ruckus.
I suspect he didn’t actually mind being in there all that much. It’s much warmer than outside, and there are soft things to curl up on. He had to have been pretty hungry and thirsty by morning, though!
I’m not even sure which of the spice boys it was. As soon as the door opened, he ran and hid under the swing bench, then peeked at me. The two of them look so much alike, and move so constantly, it’s really hard to tell which is which unless they are next to each other. Even then, we haven’t decided which one is Nutmeg and which one is Ginger! :-D
That didn’t stop both of them – and four other cats! – from following me around as I finished my rounds!
Just look at that face! :-D What a glare!
Today is going to be a quiet day of rest for us, then tomorrow is going to be a busy one! I will be heading into the city to do our monthly shop, as early in the day that I can. When I get home, we’ll unload the groceries, then load up the garbage and recycling for a much delayed trip to the dump. Earlier in the week, I had my days mixed up and thought we could do it on Thursday night, thinking that New Year’s fell on Saturday, not Friday. Thankfully, Saturday is the one day a week they are open for a full 8 hours – and it’s not a holiday – so we will have time make the trip to the city first. It’s been so long since we’ve gone to the dump, though, we might have to make two trips. We shall see.
Amazingly, it’s going to warm up quite a bit over the next couple of days. For Sunday, the predictions keep going up, and are now at 2C
Yes. Two degrees above freezing. In January! That would be 35.6F Then it’s supposed to stay warmer than -10C/14F for the next two weeks.
I had feared we would have another bitterly cold couple of months, as we had for the previous winters we have been here. I am really going to enjoy a milder winter – and the reduced electricity/heating bills. Even our equal payment plan payments will drop, with temperatures this warm! Before we were able to get on the equal payment plan, we were paying over $600 a month for December, January and February. Last year, we had a month were we would have been paying over $700 for our electricity. On months like that, our equal payment plan adjusted to a little over $300. Usually, it’s about $290, though it’s dropped to as low as $250ish.
This house is not very energy efficient, at all! :-( And the upstairs is freezing cold in the winter, with it’s one heat vent for the entire floor. When I stand at the bottom of the stairs, I can feel cold coming down, like a breeze. The girls put sheets of rigid insulation on the walls by their beds, which they then covered with decorative fabric, which made a big difference. Without out the insulation, they were actually feeling waves of cold, coming off the walls. !! This year, they haven’t even needed to use their little heater, yet. Meanwhile, in the summer, it gets insanely hot up there. :-/
Of course, with snow on the ground, my mind keeps going ahead to garden plans. In fact, I’ve been almost obsessed with garden plans! In a good way. ;-) I’ve been researching on different ways to start seeds indoors – something we had issues with last year. I am constantly reading about how important it is to use grow lights, which is something we just don’t have and can’t afford right now.
Or…
Maybe we do…
Everything I’ve been reading says ordinary lights can be used, so long as they’re bright enough.
We have two aquariums.
The little 20 gallon one I’ve given up on after the last fish finally died, has a light that is part of the lid, so no worries about the cats getting into it. It can hold one of the seed starter trays we have now, and maybe a bit more.
The big tank has two lights. The original that it came with, and one we got later. The glass lids on the big tank eventually broke and couldn’t be used. The original light rested very close to the glass lids, which actually caused problems with algae growth and scale forming on the undersides. When we had to get rid of the glass lids, the light was no longer protected from what little splashing there was from the filter output, so we got one that with risers that set it higher off the frame. It also has a built in timer.
Since a piece of the filter system broke during the move and we have not been able to find a replacement part, the tank has been used to store baskets, hidden by a cover that the cats can sit on. If we can find a way to cover the top of the tank to keep the cats out, while still allowing full light and air flow, that tank would make an excellent greenhouse for a whole several seed trays or lots of pots! We plan to use at least 3″ pots to start squash, this time, and we have a lot of summer and winter squash we want to start this year! :-)
So that is going to be a project for the next while. I’m pretty sure I have enough hardware cloth left cover the top of the big tank. I just have to figure out how to make a frame that can handle the weight of cats that are sure to jump on it, while making sure the stands that hold the light will still sit on the tank edges, where they are supposed to.
That would leave us with one more aquarium light from the big tank. If we can find a way to set that up over trays and keep the cats off at the same time, we could have even more seed trays well lit.
The Re-Farmer 