We are still in a polar vortex induced cold spell right now. I delayed doing my rounds outside until it had warmed up to -32C/-25.6F
I skipped switching out the memory cards in the trail cams again! Just the extra time to refill both bird feeders this morning was pushing it.
The heated water bowl was covered over even more than it was yesterday. Not just in frosted surface area, either.
This is after pouring off the old water. That’s a pretty solid layer of ice, left behind! Yesterday, it was more frost than ice.
The other water bowls were, of course, frozen solid. I had to do a fair amount of kicking to get them loose from the snow. When fresh water is added, the metal warms up enough to melt the snow around it, creating bowl-shaped pockets of ice that hold them in place.
Another reason why using old, broken frying pans make excellent water bowls. They can handle being kicked around, then bashed against things to knock the ice out. I used to use a wooden hand rail by the sun room to bash them against, but I didn’t like how much I was damaging the wood, so now I’m bashing them on the saw horses I’ve stored nearby. They’re old and damaged already, and I need to build new ones, so I don’t care if they get more beat up. :-D
Creamsicle Jr. didn’t move from his spot the entire time I was there! He’s under the terrarium bulb, but with the dusk-dawn light sensor, I don’t think it was actually on at the time. I don’t see the red glow of the indicator light, which would visible about 6-8 inches under the outlet.
I did get joined by Ginger, but he was the only cat I saw outside, braving the cold!
With our main entry door falling off it’s hinges, I’ve been going through the sun room to go outside. Which means going through the old kitchen, which is unheated and probably not insulated; at least not by any modern standards. We go into there as little as possible in the winter.
The old kitchen is where we had our crab apple cider vinegar fermenting, and where I now have the mother stored.
It’s almost frozen solid! You can’t even see the mother, which is in the middle of the jar, immersed in vinegar.
I have no idea if this will kill the mother or not.
Does anyone know?
When I was a kid, this room never really got cold, since the wood burning stove was kept going almost constantly, as much to help heat the house as for cooking, so lack of insulation was never really an issue. The old kitchen is an add-on to the original log part of the house, though I don’t know when it was added on. I only know it was already there when my parents bought the property.
The forecasts say we’ll have one more day of this bitter cold, though it will be a bit warmer tomorrow. Today’s high is predicted to be -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -31C/-23.8F. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be -21C/-5.8F with a wind chill of -28C/-18F. After that, we’re supposed to keep warming up for the next week. Check this out!
It’s like temperature whiplash!
Time to think of warmer things. Like gardening. I think I’ve figured out a way to raise our seed trays up closer to the light in the fish tank greenhouse. If it works, I might not need to line the sides with foil.
Outside my window, the sky is clear, the sun shines brightly, and not a twig or branch in my view is moving from anything other than birds landing on them.
As I write this, our temperature has warmed up to -24C/-11.2F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29.2F When I headed outside to do my rounds this morning, it was -25C/-13F with a wind chill of -38C/-36F.
At those temperatures, even the heated water bowl starts to freeze over! There’s actually a layer of ice forming under the frosted areas that you can just barely see.
Nutmeg was content to watch me from the comfort of their shelter!
I am so thankful my brother went through all that effort to bring their old dog house for us to use. It’s working out so well for the cats!
The cats that did come out into the cold were much more interested in the fresh warm water than the fresh food! The cat equivalent of a hot cup of tea on a cold day. :-D
When switching out the memory cards in the trail cams, I of course had to warm up the new camera with my hands, just to be able to see the screen. I wanted to see how it would take the micro disc my husband gave me.
Alas. I still got the “incompatible” message and had to format it in the camera, even though I made sure to format it on my computer. The card may be the same brand as the other one, but I guess it’s not an “ultra”. At some point, I’ll just have to buy another one of the card that works without having be formatted every time. At least I know what’s going on, now, and what I need to do to be able to see the screen.
At some point, the other camera is going to need to be replaced, too, so we’re already doing research on cameras more like the new one, but better able to handle the cold. We should have plenty of time, but I’d like to get one before it’s needed. I can’t complain about what we have. It’s still an excellent camera for the price, and I really appreciate some of the features it has, and the faster processing speed.
We’ve had ourselves a chillier morning today! Light snow, and bitterly cold winds from the south is what greeted me this morning, when I went out to do my rounds.
Kitty loaf is not impressed.
It does look pretty, though!
Switching out the micro disk cards on the new trail cam has gotten somewhat easier. The micro disk itself has become easier to take in and out; it isn’t as “sticky” as it was at the start. As long as I have enough of a thumbnail to push the card in, to either latch of unlatch it, it’s not too bad. :-D
When I open up the camera, I switch it from On to Set Up, first. The screen turns on, and that’s when I can see if the cold is an issue. If the screen is mostly blank and barely lit up, the camera is too cold. I’ve found I can use my hands to warm it up enough that the screen will start working. Which, on days like today, can be rather hard on the hands! Thankfully, it only takes about half a minute. Then I can switch the memory card and see if there are any issues.
When I got the camera, I got 2 micro discs along with it. I just ordered the recommended ones, not really noticing that one of them was actually a pack of 2. Those are the ones I’ve been using. The problem is, when I switch cards, the camera wants me to format the new card, every time, after giving me a message that the card is “incompatible.” So all those days when I found nothing on the card, it was partly because I couldn’t see the screen and missed these messages. Once the card was formatted in the camera, it worked fine. It didn’t matter if I’d already formatted it on my computer.
I shouldn’t have to do that every morning.
Last night, I dug up the extra card, formatted it on my computer, and used that, this morning.
The camera had no problem with it. No messages, and no need to format the card in the camera!
The cheaper cards were the problem.
On mentioning this to my husband, he dug around and gave me one of his extra Micro SD cards to use. It’s a 64 gig card. WAY more than needed. The other cards were 32 gigs, and even at highest resolution while set to take both photo and video, I could probably leave the card for a week and still have room to spare. The main thing is that the card won’t need to be formatted every morning. It’s even the same brand as the new one I put in this morning, so it should be fine. I’ll know for sure when I switch cards tomorrow morning.
It still doesn’t solve the problem of the camera not really working when the temperatures dip. Once it gets cold enough, it simply stops recording. It does start up again on its own, when the temperatures rise. This is frustrating, because in all other respects, I really love this new camera! But all the features I love about it are useless if the camera simply stops working when it’s cold. At least we have the second camera that keeps working. With that one, the cold is only an issue for the batteries, not the camera itself. As long as it can get any juice out of the batteries, it will keep chugging along.
Ah, the things we have to put up with, because of one person we can’t trust.
A few days ago, my husband got a phone call. There were two things odd about this. First, the call went to his cell phone. Being in a dead zone, any time a cell phone rings is downright startling. Second, the call turned out to be from Fed Ex. They had a package for him, and needed our physical address.
As near as we can figure, this was something my husband ordered back in November. After all this time, he’s actually already got a refund on it. He had been expecting it in the mail, too. Fed Ex doesn’t do box numbers!
So he called the number back using the land line and, after being on hold for about 45 minutes, finally got through to someone. After giving our physical address, he gave them precise directions on how to find us. The person he talked to even looked us up on Google maps and did eventually figure out where we were. Just inputting our physical address hadn’t worked! He then let them know about the locked gate, so they said they would send an email in advance, letting us know the package was on the way from the city.
We got that email, telling us delivery would be made yesterday. So when I went out to do my rounds, I unlocked the gate and left it open.
The last time we did that for the washing machine repairman, the gate was open only half an hour, and our vandal showed up and tried to break it again. So we were pretty uncomfortable having that gate open, but we also didn’t want the package to just be left in the snow in the driveway, either. We kept a close eye on the security camera’s live feed!
Then my husband let me know that we could close the gate up again. He just received an email. Apparently, FedEx couldn’t find us, so they weren’t going to deliver the package. They wanted us to call about getting it.
Which means, they would expect us to drive to wherever their warehouse is in the city, to pick up a package they’ve been paid to deliver to us.
I don’t think my husband plans to call back. There is no way we’re going to make the trip. UPS found us, no problem. FedEx can figure it out, too. Even when we were living in the city, we’ve had issues with them. They would actually leave notices on our door, saying no one answered when they knocked, but we had been home and no one knocked.
I was just happy to be able to close and lock the gate. No sign of our vandal, either!
Later in the afternoon, I did take advantage of the slightly warmer day to go get the mail and pick up some more deer feed and bird seed. We’d run out of both, that morning.
One of the things I’ve noticed when heading outside to do my rounds, is that our door has been making an increasingly horrible noise. The inner doors in the “new” part of the house are still the originals, and they are wooden, hollow core doors, not insulated steel doors, as are available today. These doors are heavier than interior doors, so I do think they have some sort of insulation inside them, but I really don’t know.
The “front” door, facing the spruce grove, almost never gets used, so aside from needing to put insulation between it and the storm door in the winter, to keep frost from building up at the bottom, inside the house, it’s fine. The door we actually use all the time is not doing so well! The house shifts with the seasons, so it’s not really a surprise that the door is scrapping the door jam now, and we can hear the wood of the door splitting and cracking at the bottom. So I’ve taken to lifting the door as I close it, to reduce the noise.
How much the door lifts was quite a surprise, so when I had the chance, I took a closer look.
*sigh*
The door is coming off its hinges.
This morning, I snagged my husband to help me tighten the hinges. This is the top one.
It’s hard to see in the picture, but the screw heads are even slightly bent!
Of course, with the top hinge being so loose, the middle one is, too.
Thankfully, the bottom one is still solid, but that won’t last long if these ones get any worse.
There is a built in closest near the door, so it can’t be opened all the way. My husband held it open as much as he could for me to be able to fit the screwdriver in place. Normally, I would just open the storm door, but between the cold and the cats, that wasn’t an option. While my husband lifted the door and held it in place, I tightened the screws.
As I did so, I could tell this wasn’t going to work. The screws were barely catching on anything. Still, I hoped to at least get it a bit tighter than before.
*sigh*
As soon as my husband released the door, not only did it drop, but some of the wood split above the top hinge.
I reached up with my phone to get this picture.
In the photos, you can see there are cracks in the wood of the door frame, too.
We knew the front door needed to be replaced, and were already thinking we would replace the entire frame, too. I just didn’t think we’d need to do it because the door is falling right off the hinges!
Theoretically, we can install hinges in different locations, and that would tide us over until we can replace the door and frame completely. Given how loose the door is, we might not have a choice. Even if we had the money for a door kit now, we wouldn’t want to install it in the winter. Because you just KNOW something will do wrong and it’ll take forever to do! :-D My brother recently replaced one of the doors of his house, and he used a door kit, with two doors and the frame, as we would be doing here. Everything was standard sized, so it should have been a simple switch. It wasn’t, and it took him days to get it installed properly! I don’t think our doors are standard sized, so I don’t expect anything to do smoothly.
This is something were I would much rather hire someone to install it, rather than doing it ourselves. It would cost more, of course, but would be worth every penny.
*sigh*
Another thing on the list that just became a higher priority.
The temperatures have gone up quite a bit today, and the outside cats are quite appreciating it!
I was very happy to see Rosencrantz this morning! I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.
Butterscotch also made an appearance this morning. I didn’t see her yesterday.
Her babies were just loving the new snow, running around a chasing each other in it. :-)
Butterscotch, however, would not come anywhere near me this morning, so I wasn’t able to check her wound at all. She seemed to be moving around fine, though, so that’s a good sign.
Nostildamus made up for her lack of interest, wanting all sorts of pets and attention!
He has such soft fur.
Today was a day when everything looked soft and fluffy. Even the trees.
The warmer temperatures brought with them the softest, fluffiest of snow. We got about 2 inches of it by this morning; two inches of mostly air!
The Potato Beetle is not amused. The kittens might be enjoying the snow of their first winter, but the adult cats seem much more ticked off about the whole thing! :-D
We’re supposed to drop to more normal, chilly temperatures after today, so I think I will take advantage of the day and make a trip into town to pick up a few things we are starting to running low on.
Just glancing at my weather icon on my toolbar as I write this, and see that we have reached 0C! (32F) The wind chill is at -6C/21F, which is still quite balmy! A wonderful day to get outside. :-)
I experimented with the no-knead, overnight dough recipe I’d made before, using the old dough bread baby from my Babcia’s bread experiment.
I didn’t take any process photos this time, since I was winging it. The “overnight” dough became an “over day” dough, for starters! :-D
Instead of making a pair of loaves, I made one giant loaf in a parchment paper lined lasagna pan.
As I was spreading the dough out as evenly as I could, I found myself thinking it was looking a bit like a focaccia. Too bad we’re out of olive oil.
Then I remembered… we still have some fake truffle oil (the only kind we can find, or afford!) left.
I ended up drizzling the top with the fake truffle oil, spreading the oil around evenly, then stabbing the dough with my fingers to make lots of little holes, which also helped even the dough out in the pan more, before sprinkling on some coarse salt and dried parsley.
Of course, it wasn’t real a focaccia recipe, and it rose quite a bit. This is how it turned out.
This turned out to be, hands down, the best bread I have ever baked! Definitely a winner!!
I think the next time I try this, I’ll use a baking sheet instead of the lasagna pan, to make a thinner bread. Mostly, because I think it’ll be easier to slice than this was, but it’ll also give a larger surface for the oil and salt crust. The texture and flavour it gave was amazing!
Next time, I will definitely take process shots and share the details here!
Once again, Butterscotch simply would NOT let me check her out. I barely even got to pet her, never mind check her wound!
I did manage to accidentally get a picture of a perfect snowflake on her ear, though!
Doesn’t she look so elegant and calm here?
The photo lies! :-D
The best I could get was a glance of her wound as she walked away from me, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary, so I hope that means everything is healing well. She doesn’t seem to be favoring the leg, except I think where the fur is shaved off is cold. I’ve seen her coming out of the shelf shelter we made, which has rigid insulation lining the empty bottom shelves, and more rigid insulation to block the wind and snow. She can sit in there and her bald spot will be nice and warm.
She does not go into the cat shelter. I don’t know where her hiding place is, but it is not in the inner yard. I think it’s somewhere in one of the collapsing sheds in the outer yard. :-/
Seeing two of her kittens peaking at me from between the kibble house and cat house was adorable.
I missed Nostrildamus going into the cat house; you can just barely see his tail tip through the strips of carpet. :-)
Rolando Moon is such a loaf! She is quite prepared to drive away any kitties that dare come close!
In other things, this blog hit a milestone yesterday.
We reached 500 followers!
It was rather funny when I got the notification from WordPress. In the time it took me to actually look at it, the number had gone back down to 499. Then it jumped up over 500 by the end of the day and stayed there.
This is really amazing to me. One thing that always surprises me is that anyone is finding it in the first place! That anyone is actually interested in our crazy little corner of the world is greatly appreciated, and I’ve been getting to know some really amazing people in the process. You guys are awesome! :-)
To all our new followers, thank you so much for joining us for the ride. Welcome! :-)
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!
