I want to thank those who reached out to me after my post about the various situations we’re having to deal with on the property. Your kind words and encouragement are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
The night I wrote about all that, one more thing got added to the list.
My husband broke a tooth!
Continue readingOf course, things have been busy for the past while, even though we try to keep Christmas and New Year’s very low key. I finally have some time to settle in at the computer, so I’m going to take advantage of that and catch up in things.
I’ll be going backwards in time, for the most part. :-D
Continue readingThings warmed up a bit today, and we got a bit of snow. It won’t last long; tomorrow, the temperatures are supposed to dip again.
After some consideration of what materials I had available, today I finally built an insulated shelter for the outside cats, as an extra layer of protection in the sun room, for when things start to get really cold.
Continue readingThis morning, while doing my rounds, I had an unexpected visitor – my brother’s beautiful dog! He is usually very shy and tends to sneak up behind a person, and under their hand, for sneaky pets, but not today! He was quite happy to come right up for some attention.
While I was petting him, I heard a noise above my head.
As usual, the cats had followed me while I was doing my rounds. Butterscotch and Beep Beep will bully each other to be carried. This morning, Butterscotch came along, and she was not happy to see our visitor!
Sadly, when I paused to take the picture, my visitor went away.
As I started back, I saw Butterscotch was not the only one unhappy with our visitor!
Even Junk Pile cat had been following along and was up a tree, but before I could get a picture, he’d jumped down and bolted further into the grove.
I want a dog. :-D
The Re-Farmer
I admit, my morning rounds are not as consistent as they should be. Some mornings, when my daughter has a shift, it’s earlier – and this time of year, pitch black, still! Others, like today, I can wait until there’s actually light out.
Which means, I can get pictures of the company I get. :-D
I always do the cat food and water first, then do the feeding station. The cats will happily abandon food and fresh water to come join me.
Because, apparently, bird bath water is better.
They also like to use the bird feeder pole as a scratching post. :-D
Creamsicle was all set to jump on me!
I didn’t let him.
As I finished up at the feeding station, I realized I had an audience.
Gosh, they are so funny.
Also, that aloe vera behind Dave is the baby of one we had before our move. It’s about half the size of the mama was. We called it the sarlacc, so I guess this is sarlacc junior. :-D
The Re-Farmer
So… the outside cats didn’t need much feeding this morning.
This is how I found things when I came in.
How none of that fell into the litter pans, I have no idea!
Also, we had company while I was cleaning up.
Could this be our culprit?
Continue reading
Before things started to stay below freezing, I was able to give the bird bath a thorough scrubbing and add a bit of water. Which froze overnight, so I added more in the morning.
The cats just can’t get enough of that. Here, the top layer has frozen, so there are bubbles moving underneath that entrance them, but even while the water is freshly added, they’ll jump into it, getting their paws all wet!
Silly kitties.
They’re going to have to stop doing that soon, or they’ll get frostbite!
I discovered the cats were not the only ones enjoying the warmer, insulated sun room, this evening!
Continue readingMy husband had some packages to pick up in today’s mail, so I made a quick trip in to pick them up.
I was expecting 2, maybe 3, boxes.
There was 5! LOL The clerk helped me carry them to my van. :-D
When I got home, I was surprised to find my name on one of them.
A dear friend had sent me a surprise!
No more trying to keep the cats’ water from freezing with a light bulb! :-D
Of course, I had to set it up right away.
The cats were quick to show their appreciation.
It took Doom Guy a minute to realize there was water in the new bowl. The warm water I had put out this morning was already starting to freeze!
My husband had actually ordered one, too – in fact, it might be in one of the other boxes I picked up! So we’ll have two. :-)
I have the best friends!
The Re-Farmer
Something very disorienting happened today.
There was a knock at the door.
Which is one of those things that is so unexpected, it takes a moment for my brain to clue in and say, “oh… there’s a person at the door.” :-D
Turns out, it was the guy delivering the straw bale we had ordered. He had to leave the tractor in the driveway, hop the locked gate, and come knocking.
There’s a reason I asked for a call first! :-D The guy delivering the bale was not the guy I bought it from, so he probably didn’t have my number. Not that he could have called us from his tractor, anyhow. ;-)
I was really happy to see him, that’s for sure! It’s been snowing off and on, and the temperatures are dropping, so I really wanted to get that septic tank covered!
This time, I asked him to drop it off in the old garden area. You can see that the bale has been sitting for a year! After unwrapping it, I started trying to pull the straw down near that dark area, and found it half frozen and very wet.
Which is great, because the wet straw that’s already starting to decompose went straight onto the garden area, and some of the compost, right away. I even found a worm in it. LOL
This is where our septic tank is. Our system is very different from what is usual; instead of a gravity based system, ours has a smaller tank and pumps. There are pipes leading from the basement to the left of the tank in this photo. The tank has two chambers. Everything goes into the first chamber, then when it fills with liquid, there is an overflow chamber. When that fills, the liquid is pumped to a field out by the barn. The pipe for the outflow runs under the old kitchen, which is behind the septic lid in the photo.
All of these pipes are buried deep and, theoretically, we could go without covering any of this at all, but it’s not something we want to take a chance with. An extreme winter could freeze the ground far enough that the pipes would freeze, and if that happened, it could get really nasty in our basement! It would also cost many thousands of dollars to get it fixed. So spending $25 on a bale and covering it is really cheap insurance! ;-)
Here is now it looks now! I added extra along the old kitchen foundation, just for a bit of extra insulation.
I’m leaving the tools with the bale for now, as we’ll be using it to insulate the old dog houses, probably in a couple of days.
While working on this, I had several very curious kitties checking things out. I expect the bale will also serve throughout the winter to keep little paws warm, and for burrowed nests, as well. :-) They were already quite keen on getting into it.
When I was done, I got a selfie with Susan.
She was not co-operative. LOL
Another thing off the list of things to get done before winter! :-)
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 