outside cats

Preparing for Thanksgiving

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Before I start, I want to say Powitaninia! Dziękują za odwiedzanie! to my sudden spike of new visitors from Poland. To jest cudowne mieć wy tutaj.

Today is going to be a busy day for us – and it was a busy day of cats this morning!

On the list of things to do is clean out the eaves troughs (aka gutters), so I left the ladder out after bringing it to the well for the plumbers. The cats don’t seem to mind it there at all. :-D

The painted bird feeder stand is now ready to be put up again, so that’s another thing on the to-do list.

Can you see the little snoot of a hidden kitten?

There he is!

The little kittens now come out to the food bowls here, consistently. Though I have seen one or two explore inside the cat house, they prefer to hide under it, rather than in it!

Also, their mother is getting nasty! Butterscotch has been growling and hissing other cats away from the food bowls, which is not all that atypical. It’s when she goes after her own kittens that it concerns me!

Also on the to-do list is building a simple shelter to keep the snow off the food bowls. One that’s long enough that I can spread them out, instead of crowding them under the makeshift shelter I’ve made on the sawhorses to keep any rain off.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. While the holiday falls on Monday, we will be having our dinner tomorrow, and some preparations are starting today. I’ve got a turkey that should be thawed out by now, and I just finished preparing a brine. I decided to try something different this year, since I happen to have the ingredients. Along with the usual salt, brown sugar and herbs, I’ve added a generous amount of apple cider vinegar (the one that I used as a “starter” for our own vinegar that is still fermenting). Once the brine is cooled down, it will go into our giant stock pot with the turkey, adding enough cold water to completely immerse the bird. Then it will go into the old kitchen to chill for the night.

Having an un-insulated room has come in surprisingly handy for things that need refrigerating, but don’t fit in our refrigerator! It’s not quite cool enough in the summer, but this time of year, it’s perfect for the job.

Probably not too good for our fermenting vinegar, though! :-D

We never stuff our turkey, but I do like to add aromatics into the cavity. When it comes time to roast the turkey tomorrow, I will continue the apple theme. I like to rub the turkey all over with lemon, then put the pieces inside the cavity for extra flavour and moisture. This time, I plan to add apple pieces as well. The bottom of the roasting pan will have some celery sticks, onion slices and carrot pieces laid out to act as a roasting rack, while also adding flavour to the juices that will be used to make a gravy. The turkey itself will be topped with a woven mat of bacon – a trick I learned from my late mother-in-law.

I picked up some things yesterday, to help me with finishing the sun room door, so I will be heading out to work on that right away. I neglected to check the mail yesterday, though. It turns out our bulbs and garlic arrived, but with Monday being a holiday, I won’t be able to pick them up until Tuesday. So the girls and I will use the time to prep where the bulbs will be planted. Given how late in the season it is, and that we are dipping below freezing almost every night now, we will have to make good use of mulch to help the bulbs get the start they need once they’re in the ground.

Lots of work to do before the cold! But we will still take the time to celebrate the many things we have to be thankful for. For all the problems we are finding in this place, it’s still better than where we were before moving out here! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Got a new toy, and dealing with unexpected issues

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“Only” 10 yard cats showed up for breakfast. :-)

This morning, after doing my rounds and feeding the felines, I headed into town to run a few errands. This included stopping at the post office in our little hamlet. Which is also a liquor store.

I bought a whole lot of wine.

Or, should I say, my daughter did, since she paid for it. :-D

We don’t actually want the wine, but it came in 3L jugs. We need to rack our hard apple cider, and I’ve been hesitating because we only have gallon jugs (4L) to rack into. With using unfiltered, raw apple juice, there is going to be a LOT left behind when we siphon off the liquid, and 4L jugs would have left a lot more headroom than there should be.

The 3L wine bottles will be perfect carboys.

We will just have to drink a lot of wine over the next couple of days! :-D

I hope it’s actually good wine. I’m not a wine drinker to begin with, so chances are pretty high I won’t like it. :-D

I was happy to see the waterproof cord protectors came in in the mail, so that’s another step closer to winterizing the cat house.

Once in town, I made a point of stopping at a local business that had been getting threats, including death threats, for putting up a humorous sign saying “face diapers” were not required to enter. I’d talked to one of the owners online, and wanted to stop in in person to show them some support. We had an excellent chat. It turned out the owner has a health condition and cannot wear a mask. Even though there is no mask mandate, some of the local businesses are refusing to allow anyone in without a mask, even if it means discriminating against people on the basis of health, so he wanted people to know everyone was welcome in his business, with or without a mask. It was good to hear that, for all the threats and efforts to cancel his business out completely, he’s now busier than ever! It’s a printing business, and he gave me a bunch of business card sized notices of exemption, citing the relevant portion of the mandates (for those municipalities the province put mandates on) and phone numbers.

One of them will be going on my mother’s door, and I’ll be giving her one to carry with her, too.

After visiting the shop, I went to the other hardware store in town, hoping they might have something I could use to cut the piece of door frame for the sun room. Even just clamps, so I could use the reciprocating saw.

I ended up leaving with an inexpensive jigsaw.

My new toy got a major workout today! It even went through hidden nails.

But before I started that, I ended up spending some time on the computer, emailing with my siblings about the situation with my mother. Then I called her and asked for the name and number for the social worker she deals with. These are the people she talks to when there are problems where she lives. She didn’t want to give me the number, saying she didn’t want to make trouble with the caretakers. She had found a note under her door saying that I should be wearing a mask in the building, but it was not signed or anything. She’s pretty sure who left it. We talked about how she should not be wearing a mask, and she again said she didn’t want to make trouble, and just takes it off her face when she needs to breathe. !!!! I convinced her to give me the information, and promised to be nice to them. :-D

It turns out that the number was for a senior’s office, and while they often do things where my mother lives (until they got canceled by the pandemic restrictions), they don’t actually have any say in what goes on there. That falls under a provincial department.

When I called them, identifying myself and my relationship to my mother, then told them what happened, they immediately came to the same conclusion as my mother about who left the note. At one point, I was talking to two people on speakerphone, and they seemed so incredibly happy that I was calling on behalf of my mother. It turns out they have been trying for years to get this caretaking couple fired, due to their horrific and abusive behaviour towards the seniors in the buildings they work in – not just the one my mother is in! – but they have the residents so intimidated, no one is willing to write a formal complaint to the provincial department that manages the building. It turns out this couple has especially targeted my mother, who stands up to them the most. The ladies I spoke to vehemently agreed that my mother should not be wearing a mask, but she has told them she’s afraid of what would happen – meaning how the caretakers would react – if she didn’t. !!! They have already threatened to get my mother evicted, and it turns out they’ve threatened the job of one of the social workers, too!

In the end, I got a name and number for the person they’ve been working with at the provincial level, and they were thrilled that I was willing to call with a complaint (because even if they witness something, they are not allowed to say anything themselves), asking me to let them know how it works out.

When I called the number, though, it went straight to voice mail, so I left a message saying I wanted to talk about elder abuse towards my mother. I will try again tomorrow.

Once I did as much as I could with that, I headed outside and started to set up to use my new toy.

I was being watched!

Sibling snuggles!

So adorable!

Of course, once I started making too much noise, they ran off.

With my daughter’s help, I was able to cut the marked area off the piece of frame. Then we set it in place and…

… made a new mark to cut it again.

Finally! We can close the door with the frame piece.

I had considered screwing the pieces in place, but in the end, decided we’ll just nail them.

The crazy thing is, with all the buckets, jars, tins and plastic margarine containers full of nails all over the place, we have absolutely no nails that we can use to put the frame pieces in!

We’ve got lots of roofing nails, though. :-D

So tomorrow, I will make another trip into town.

Once the frame pieces are back, we will remove the door and use the pieces I cut off the frame on one side, to add to the frame on the other side, so that the door will hang straight, even if the sun room itself is now shifted.

It is all a horrible, messy looking patch job, but until we are in a position to replace the entire door frame, it’s the best we can do for now.

I’m glad I found that little jig saw. It still had a hard time cutting this surprisingly hard wood. That is also managed to cut through some hidden nails, barely slowing down, is bonus.

I will have to make a point of stocking up on spare blades. I foresee using this baby a lot, in the future!

Once we did as much as we could with the door, I had a chance to paint the other side of the support post for the old platform bird feeder. I’ve already picked up a new hanging feeder to put on its hook, ready and waiting. For now, I will not be trying to put on a new platform, and will just leave the little support pieces for that, where they are.

If all goes well, we should be able to set it up by the end of this week. I’ll just have to pick up some more bird seed. :-)

The Re-Farmer

This and that

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A whole bunch of little things happening today.

The kitties were happy to see me this morning! :-D

I did find the missing food container that had been in the entry to the cat house. It is, indeed, still in the cat house, but somehow got dragged well into the main space, in an area where I could only see if when the sun was shining through the window in the entry! LOL

I got one side of the bird feeder support painted.

Then it started to rain and I tucked it into the sun room. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do the other side today.

While that was drying, I started to work on trimming the pieces from the sun room door frame so we can finally hand the replacement door straight. I measured how much space I had, taking into account space needed around the door itself. The piece across the top would be an easy one, but the side piece needs to have a half inch difference between the top and bottom.

I quickly discovered some problems.

I was looking forward to using the table saw for this, only to discover the blade isn’t large enough to cut through. It would only reach half the thickness of the wood. I went hunting in the basement and the garage and did find more blades, but none larger.

I figured I would use the circular saw, instead. I started with the short, top piece, but it’s only 2 1/2 inches wide. I had my daughter try to help by holding it steady on the saw horses, but we discovered that the circular saw couldn’t cut all the way through, either. ??? Well, there’s the reciprocating saw. The blade on that was more than long enough. Except we don’t have clamps large enough to hold the piece in place, and it vibrates so much, there was no way it could be held steady by hand.

Which left using a hand saw.

At which point I could really feel how hard the hardwood is! It took forever to saw the half-inch I needed to remove.

There is no way the side piece can be cut by hand. It’s just too awkward, it’s several times longer than the top piece, and the cut that needs to be made is a very gradual angle. I was able to use the chalk line to mark a guideline to follow, but it would be difficult enough using power tools, never mind by hand!

I might just have to go and pick up some larger clamps, so I can use the reciprocating saw. I was looking at circular saw blades while at the hardware store yesterday, and they had almost no inventory, so I can’t even just buy a larger blade for the table saw.

I’ll make that decision, tomorrow.

So we moved on to other things. Like deciding to use up all the carrots we harvested to make one giant pot of carrot soup.

With the beets, too, since there are so few of them.

As I write this, they are all being roasted in the oven, and the girls are working on the other preparations. We got about 6 pounds of carrots (and maybe half a pound of that is beets! LOL), so it’ll be a triple recipe. We’ve never made carrot soup before. It should be very interesting in appearance, with all the colours in there. The carrots includes purple, white, yellow, and orange, while the beets include red and white, deep red and gold. I figure we’ll get … purplish grey. LOL

The vegetables were all still on the metal mesh “door” in the old kitchen, which is about as cold as a refrigerator these days. Once they were trimmed and removed, I took the time to reinforce the metal mesh. Some of the staples were already popped out. :-(

I’d found some washers in the garage a while back, large enough to reinforce the mesh, but the holes in the washers were too large for wood screws. So I got some smaller washers that would hold the screws.

This is on the support bar across the middle, which had lost the most staples.

Doing the sides was a bit different. The mesh is slightly off center, so on one side, I had plenty of mesh to work with, while on the other…

… there was about half the amount to work with. It worked, though. The mesh feels very secure. Even if the staples somehow end up coming out, the mesh will stay in place. It is now strong enough to use as a soil or compost sifter, if we want.

For now, though, it’s tucked away until we need it next year. :-)

Now to go see how things are going with that carrot and beet soup…

:-)

The Re-Farmer

It wasn’t supposed to rain today

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All the forecasts showed the rains would be passed by this morning. Instead, we’ve got three large systems heading over us.

Which meant the cat food containers I put by the cat house were full of water.

At least all the food that was in them was gone, first.

I dragged over the saw horses and made them a quick shelter.

I reached into the cat house to grab the container in there to fill, but it was gone. Not just pushed back, almost out of reach, as I’ve found it before. Nope. Completely gone!

There was another container that I’d had that disappeared. I figured it got pushed under the cat house, but with this one completely gone, now I wonder!

The girls heard skunks fighting last night. I wonder if they could have dragged them off? Is that a thing skunks do?

Hopefully, the rain will be done by this afternoon, when we’re supposed to have quite pleasant temperatures. We were going to put the sheets of insulation around the bottom of the house today, as well as cover the septic tank for the winter, but we’ll see how wet it still is.

Well, now… The phone rang while I was writing this. My mother called to let me know she found a note slipped under her door, saying “your daughter has to wear a mask.” When I brought up medical exemptions, and that she shouldn’t be wearing one, either, she told me that they don’t understand that. She doesn’t want trouble, so she wears one and just pulls it away from her face, or under her neck, when she can’t breathe.

*sigh*

That is a problem to deal with another time! For now, I need to head to town to pick up a prescription refill for my husband, at the pharmacy where they are more sane about things like this!

The Re-Farmer

Getting a little closer, and… another one

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I have been using the food and water bowls outside to slowly get the little kittens used to coming to the cat house, where they will hopefully get curious enough to go inside and discover how nice and dry and warm it is in there.

There had been quite a crowd at the food bowls earlier, but they ran off as I walked around. There had been a couple of Butterscotch’s kittens there, though the others were hanging around near the door to the house, where one of the containers had been for the past week or so.

Nostrildamus is comfortable enough with me to not run off. Normally, Little Braveheart would be there, too, but…

I’ll get to that in a bit.

Yesterday, I was going to take a break from digging garden beds. Partly because I still haven’t decided if I want to make a third one, and partly because it feels like I’ve pulled all the muscles in the backs of my legs. Nothing major, but I figured a couple of days rest would be a good idea.

Which was good timing, because I got a call from my mother, asking if I could drive her for groceries. It was a bit chilly to walk.

So I headed out in the afternoon and did that. I’d forgotten that her municipality is under a mask mandate now. Even in the lobby of where my mother lives, they are supposed to wear masks. Which is so bizarre and arbitrary. Especially considering how low the numbers are right now. But, the goal posts have been moved again, and masks are now the thing.

The problem is, my mother shouldn’t be wearing a mask. She has long been complaining about breathing problems, and we haven’t been able to track down why. I tried to talk to her about it, when she asked if I had one and I told her I can’t wear masks, but it was not a conversation she could handle. She put it on before we left, leaving it under her nose, but as we were driving, I could really hear her struggling to breath. Meanwhile, no one batted an eye at my not wearing one. *sigh*

Unfortunately, my mother was in “fine form” this time. While chatting before we left, I tried showing her some pictures of the garlic beds I was working on, and she became incredibly angry. I shouldn’t be doing any of this, because it should be plowed or tilled. She saw the straw layer and, even as I tried to say I’d added compost first and what I was doing, she kept cutting me off and asking why there was straw under there. Then she got mad about the wood walkways, and said I need to take those out and plant things there, because it was a waste of space. Because apparently, there shouldn’t be room to walk in a garden. ??

That was just the start of things. After shopping, she wanted to go to a restaurant for a quick bite, and that got cut off short when my not living the way she wanted turned into a racist rant (my husband is Metis).

It was not a good time.

When I got home, the girls had the van ready and filled with stuff for the dump, so I basically switched vehicles and did that. When I was finally able to come inside to stay, I noticed the door to the new part basement was closed. Since all the cat food and most of the litter boxes are down there, I commented on it. I was informed that my younger daughter was down there.

With Little Braveheart.

While they were loading the van, she was able to pet and pick up Braveheart and Nostrildamus. She was also able to confirm that Nostrildamus is male, and Braveheart is female.

In the interest of reducing the number of future litters, Braveheart was brought inside.

We now have 15 cats in the house.

Braveheart is semi-feral – and still more feral than semi – so she’s been spending most of the time hiding somewhere. While in the basement, my other daughter would slowly introduce other cats downstairs. Braveheart had been meowing plaintively when Two Face first came down. They instantly got along, and meows became purrs as they ate together. Over the next while, she met the other cats and seemed to get along much better with the dudes than the dudettes! Fenrir does not like her, but she isn’t particularly friendly with any of the cats, so that’s not unusual. Beep Beep batted at her, but Beep Beep is in heat and has been randomly batting at all of the cats.

I’ve been putting the word out on local Facebook groups to try and adopt cats out, but have had zero responses. No one wants cats right now, apparently. Our next step is to print out posters and drive around to different towns in the area and put them up.

Today I hope to finally get my day of rest. I did start soaking down the garlic beds last night; I plan to do that again today, and will continue wetting them down over the next while until the garlic comes in. I want them to be soaked through the compost layer before planting. I’m leaning towards not doing a third bed and, if the two beds we have now are not enough, we can plant garlic in the retaining wall blocks in the old kitchen garden. Of course, that assumes our back order comes in in time!

I have also been keeping an eye on the various materials I’ve been finding lying about, and I think I have what I need to make a quick little shelter for the outside food and water bowls. I want to keep those by the cat house, but don’t want them to be buried in snow. We’ll have the heated water bowl plugged into the second outlet in the cat house. The cord should be just long enough to reach outside the entry, so I’ll want to set something up there to keep it from getting snowed under, too. Last year, it was set up inside the sun room, so that wasn’t an issue. I will be working on plans for that, today, and hopefully will start building something tomorrow, when it’s expected to be warmer, and not raining.

We’ve been very fortunate this fall, so far. Last year, we already had a snowfall by this time, and a blizzard on Thanksgiving weekend. The long range forecasts have us warmer, with rain every now and then. I’ve heard predictions for both another bitterly long and cold winter, and for a long, mild fall followed by a milder winter. So far, the longer, mild fall seems to be the one that’s coming true.

I’ll take all that I can get!

The Re-Farmer

Frosty morning – and a rough start to the day!

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This morning, I was awakened by my husband, asking me if there was some trick to starting the washing machine.

I think it was a rhetorical question.

Our new washing machine, which we’ve had for only 2 1/2 months, simply stopped working. It won’t turn on.

Of course, my husband went through the usual check list. Breaker? It was fine. Outlet? Tested both plugins. Meter reads fine. While I went through the manual’s trouble shooting chart (which basically said, check the breaker, check the outlet), my husband went online and found that there’s a hard reset you can do, so we tried that. Still nothing. It simply will not turn on.

So I started looking at how to contact the LG to get it fixed, since we’re well within the 1 year limited warranty. I tried their website, first. Made an account, registered the item, started a request for getting warranty work done…

Got a note saying we were not under warranty, and we would be billed for the service call.

???

So I finally just phoned.

The good news is, the person I spoke to confirmed we are still under warranty; their website glitches sometimes. She was apologetic about that. Since I had just made an account on the website, she was able to find me in the system, so that made things faster.

They didn’t have any technicians available for where we are, but there is a local company that does warranty work for them, so they will contact this company on our behalf, and we will get a phone call from them.

Soon, I hope!

While I was working on this, I heard the well pump turn on and the noise it made really threw me. Since our plumber hasn’t gotten back to us, and I happened to catch the name of another plumber being recommended on a local Facebook group, I asked my husband to try contacting them.

It turns out that, this time of year, a lot of people are closing up their cottages for the winter, so he’s really busy with those jobs right now. So busy, he recommended we try someone else, because there was no way he could come in within the week. I don’t imagine other plumbers will be any different, so we might have to just wait until after Thanksgiving, which is next weekend.

By the time we got all that done, I was still earlier than usual to get the outside rounds done. I figured the cats wouldn’t mind being fed early! :-D

It was -1C/30F at the time. The cats’ water bowls had ice on them, and the ground was covered with frost. It was quite beautiful.

  • Cat paths!
  • Frosted burdock

Rosencrantz was not impressed.

While going through the garden areas, I noticed the one sunflower with the seed head that was killed off by grubs looked… odd.

It looks like the grubs continued eating their way down the stalk – and then got killed by the frost!

Die, grubbins, die! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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Some feline adorableness to make you smile. :-)

When I go outside in the mornings, Braveheart is usually the one to come running towards me. Then she stops and acts surprised that she’s so close to me and starts backing off. :-D This morning, however, she came up to me – and let me pet her! She even started purring! This is the first time she has allowed me to pet her, without her being at the food bowl and eating.

What a crowd!

I was very happy to see Butterscotch’s kittens hanging around – and to see a Creamsicle Jr. and the calico hanging out with the bigger ones! The two orange babies were with their mom at another kibble container, but I didn’t want to potentially scare them away from food, just to get a picture.

Rosencrantz and her baby, keeping their distance!

I got to pet both Braveheart and Nostrildamus while they were eating. Mystery kept running off and coming back before finally settling in to eat. The calico was doing much the same, but once she saw all the others staying to eat while I was so close, she finally joined them. I didn’t try to pet her; this was progress enough for now!

What a great way to start the day. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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It was nice to see one of the little kittens sharing food with the bigger kittens this morning.

An interesting thought.

Butterscotch (in the back) is mother to Rosencrantz, who is mother to Junk Pile who is mother to the three big kittens here. Which makes Butterscotch their great-grandmother.

Butterscotch is mother to Creamsicle Jr. there, which makes him brother to Rosencrantz, uncle to Junk Pile and great uncle to the kittens that now tower over him.

Cat genetics can get convoluted!

The Re-Farmer

All aglow, and yard helper

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The cat house we now have to provide the outside kitties shelter for the winter has power to it. There are two outlets inside, one of which has a light plugged into it. We’ve never been able to plug it in. The nearest source of power is in the old kitchen. We’ve got an extension cord going through the window that we use, but it wasn’t long enough to reach the cat house.

Yesterday, I was able to pick up a new outdoor 25ft extension cord.

It just barely reached!

But reach, it did!

The problem is, I’m not sure how much the cats will use it, all lit up like that. It’s a 100 watt bulb (under a protective, waterproof cover), so it will also help with warmth a little bit, but I am thinking we might want to find some way to create a shaded area more conducive to sleep.

As for warmth, we’ve been looking at different possibilities, but the biggest issue is one of safety. Most types of heaters would not do well enclosed in a small space full of flax straw and a bunch of cats that like to scratch and dig. My daughter, however, thought that maybe a terrarium heater might work. When clearing out the shelves in my mother’s old bedroom, I did find a red heat bulb for chicks, but it’s a 500 watt bulb. We could get a terrarium bulb in black or blue, that’s 100 or 150 watts – or a no-light ceramic heater that screws in like a light bulb. Like this. (not an affiliate link) I think that would be much safer than some of the warming mats we’ve been looking at.

In fact, I just interrupted writing this post to ask my husband to find a ceramic heater type on Amazon Prime to order. This is not something we would be able to find locally.

Solution found! :-) I think the cats will be much happier with that. Since the cat house has three windows in it, they will still have daylight, or even moonlight, rather than being blinded. We still have a couple of sheets of rigid insulation we can add to the walls or under the roof.

Maybe not the walls. They like to use it as scratching posts! :-D

Meanwhile, we still need to replace the skid under it. When we do, we can move the whole thing a little bit closer to the house, to give the new extension cord some slack. I’ll also be picking up one of those waterproof cord protector boxes, since it will definitely end up buried in snow at some point.

I left the cat house plugged in last night, to see if the cats would use it while lit up. When I came out this morning, I didn’t see any cats in it – though I did see cats on it! :-D Unfortunately, looking through the window, I did see that the cats have been pooping in a corner. *sigh* That didn’t take long! :-(

This little baby looks ready to help me with the yard work!

She was actually hunting leaves blown around by the wind. :-D

I was actually able to pet her, Rosencrantz AND her brother this morning, while feeding them!

I’ve been calling this one Little Braveheart, but the girls have named her Tissue, because she looks like tissue paper blowing in the wind as she runs across the yard.

What do you thing? Braveheart or Tissue?

I’ve been calling her brother the oh-so-original “Tabby”, but the girls have been calling him Nostril, because he had one black nostril. I was telling my husband this, and he immediately went to “Nostril-damus.”

I think we have a winner! :-D

The Re-Farmer