photo of the day

Ghost’s Baby!

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We did get a little bit of snow last night. According to the past 24 hr data, we never dipped below 3C/37F. Which means the seedlings in the sun room handled the less severe temperature drop last night just fine, from the looks of it so far.

I had quite a surprise this morning, though.

While setting food and water out for the outside cats, I suddenly heard a very distinctive mewing sound. ALL the cats (only about 7 or 8 this morning) whipped their heads around to look! It took a moment, but I finally spotted Ghost Baby running across the snow by the storage house.

With a kitten in her mouth. A little, dark mewling baby.

Poor thing! It is way to cold and snowy to be having kittens this early.

Last year, I believe she had her kittens under the former workshop that is now stuffed with my parents’ belongings. How many she had – or how many survived – we have no way of knowing. I think one of the ‘iccuses is hers.

I figure she was trying to bring her kitten(s) closer to food, water and more secure shelter by the house. It’s unlikely she’d be bringing them to the cat’s house. The space inside it too big and open, and too many other cats use it. She was headed in the direction of the pump shack, where I know Rosencrantz has had kittens before – though last year she had her kittens in the junk pile near the chain link fence, which is why we now have a kibble tray under the shrine. I don’t think she was actually going for the pump shack, though, but just heading that way because my presence startled her.

We have a shelf by the sun room door with leftover pieces of rigid insulation covering the bottom two shelves, with openings, so that cats can use it as shelter. The “floors” have sheets of insulation, too. They’ve been pretty rough on the insulation across the front, and one side was almost completely broken up and off. It’s unlikely but, just in case, I found some more scraps of insulation and recovered one side, leaving smaller openings into the two bottom shelves. I think the spaces inside might still be too open for the comfort of a mama cat and kittens, and certainly there’s too much foot traffic, but if the adult cats use it, that leaves more hidey holes for mamas.

I did see Ghost Baby again, running into the kibble house to join the others for food. She came from a completely different direction. Another possible location for kittens is the junk pile at the edge of the spruce grove. I supposed I should stop calling it a junk pile, since we’ve cleared off most of the junk and it’s mostly a stack of salvaged boards. Butterscotch has had several litters tucked away under there since we’ve moved here. With Butterscotch now indoors, that leaves some prime real estate open. There’s also the space under the old garden shed, but there’s a lot of snow in the way, and there’s a groundhog den under it now.

With the cold and snow we’ve been having, the chances of any kittens born now surviving are not that good. I think Ghost Baby is a good mama, though, and has found a better place for her litter, however many there may be.

Meanwhile, as I was fussing with the shelf shelter, Potato Beetle got outside again! I let him be while I finished with the shelf, then snagged him back into the sun room. His appointment with the vet is this evening, so we don’t want to loose track of him! He is still favouring the leg, but moving around fairly well. I hope that means the injury is fairly minor. I think mostly we need to just keep him away from the other cats that are beating on him. He’s not the “top dog” anymore.

I think we’ll need to keep an eye outside today, and see what’s going on with Ghost Baby. If we can figure out where she’s put her kitten(s), we can move some food and water trays closer, so she doesn’t have to go all the way to the kibble house. Assuming we can get to where she is, through the snow. :-/

The weather forecasts have, of course, changed. The predicted temperatures are a bit lower, and we’re now supposed to be getting small amounts of both rain and snow over the next few days. Tonight, we were supposed to get sleet, but now it’s saying “ice pellets”. !!!

As long as the roads stay clear and relatively dry. Not only do we have the vet appointment this evening, but I’ve got to go to court tomorrow morning. Hopefully, the judge will see our vandal has no case against me and throw it out, but the way things went with our restraining order application that took a year to finally get settled, it may well just be a 10 minute session to book a new trial date. My brother is taking time off work to be there as my witness, though, so this is a major inconvenience for him. Our vandal is retired, and has all the time in the world for crap like this, so he doesn’t care. :-/

What a pain.

Well, it will be what it will be. Not much I can do about that now.

I’m going to go bake some bread now, and angst about newborn kittens in the cold.

The Re-Farmer

Seriously?

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Check out this screencap from my phone’s weather app.

Yeah. They’re predicting another 5-10cm/2-4in of snow in a couple of days. If I tap to check the “snowfall probability”, though, is says 1-2 cm, which is less than an inch.

My desktop weather app says Wednesday will be 3C/37F, with 2-4cm of snow, which is less than 2 inches.

Meanwhile, I’ve read that there is a possibility of another Colorado Low developing later in the month.

Seriously????

I’m trying to stay positive here. Appreciating the moisture and all, but could it please start coming as rain now, instead of sow? I mean, we’re still supposed to have highs above freezing, so you’d think we’d be getting rain, but apparently not. :-/

Anyhow.

While I was heating up water for the outside cats, I spotted some activity out the kitchen window.

Cheeky buggers! :-D

Actually, they’re using the paths we’ve dug out, since all the other ones have been left snowed in.

I think I spotted 11 cats outside this morning. I’m not sure how many are at the kibble tray on the ground.

Things got weird with Ghost Baby, though. As I was pouring out the kibble, she actually ran right up to me, then backed off an hissed… then ran up, then hissed, then ran up, then hissed… Very odd. Especially having her run up close enough to rub against my leg! As I went around to put kibble on the tray on the ground, she came up and went for the tray, then hissed at me, then went for the tray again.

While I was putting seeds out in the feeding station, I could hear the yowling of cats. I came around to see what was going on, and pretty much all the cats had run off – except Ghost Baby. As I came closer, she went around the side of the kibble house, so I checked on her. I held my hand out to her and she actually touched my finger with her nose – which had a spot of blood on it! – and hissed again.

We were almost out of deer feed and low on kibble, so I decided to make a quick run into town. After popping inside for a bit, I came back out to discover 2 skunks in the kibble house – and Ghost Baby in the space between the kibble house and the cat house, screaming at them! The skunks saw me and tried to run away, but Ghost Baby was in the way, and even batted at them. The poor skunks where in a pickle!

No surprise when Ghost Baby got sprayed. The skunks got by here, but I could see she had a big, yellow splash right across her chest.

It doesn’t seem to be bothering her. She wanted that kibble!

The outside cats typically have their kittens around the end of April or beginning of May. It is very possible that Ghost Baby is due to have hers within a couple of weeks, which may explain her behaviour.

Rosencrantz, Broccoli and at least one other cat – possibly Junk Pile – are looking very, very round, too.

There are going to be way too many kittens this year – though there is always the question of how many will survive long enough for us to ever see them. Beep Beep and Butterscotch always stuck close to home, even when we didn’t manage to catch them to have their kittens in either the sun room or our basement. The other cats won’t have their kittens in the cat shelter – it’s far to busy in there and used by too many cats. We’ll just have to see how many there are, probably around June.

I think Butterscotch will be very happy to NOT be pregnant this year!

Meanwhile, Potato Beetle is still being kept in the sun room, though he did make his escape while my daughter tried to get the loaded wagon through the sun room door while I carried the feed sack. We left him be while things got brought inside, then the girls put things away while I refilled the bins of kibble and feed. By the time I got outside again, though, I couldn’t see Potato Beetle. It took me a while, but I finally spotted him, rolling luxuriously in the snow, then going around marking his territory on some trees. :-D He finally came over for cuddles, and I was able to get him back in the sun room.

He still wants out.

Though he is still favouring his front left leg, he does seem to be better, and able to put more weight on it. Hopefully, it’s just a minor injury. We’ll find out when we get him to the vet on Wednesday evening (unless we get a call due to a cancellation).

Potato Beetle may be wanting out, but he’s also REALLY loving it when we visit him in the sun room. This cat loves his cuddles!

Now, if he could just learn how to use that litter box. This morning, I discovered he somehow managed to use a tall bucket to leave a “present” for me, without knocking it over. It’s going to be pretty unpleasant when it’s time to clean out the sun room, and we pull the swing bench out, because I’m pretty sure it’s behind there that he’s been making a mess. Until it’s warm and dry enough outside that we can empty the sun room and clean it out, however, we’re just going to have to put up with the smells.

*sigh*

At least it’s warm enough that we can open up the inner door to outside. The outer door lets in more sunlight, so it still stays pretty warm, but the window is open a few inches, so there’s at least a bit of air circulation.

Whether or not we’re getting another Colorado Low or now, we’re going to have to start using that sun room as a greenhouse for more seedlings, and today was the day for that.

Which will get a post of its own. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Happy Easter!

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My daughter was sweet enough to take photos of Easter brunch from our basket for me to share.

She even used a couple of the Lavender Rose China we inherited from my late MIL as part of the display. She made it all look so pretty!

Unfortunately, my husband had an unusually bad pain day and was not able to join the girls. In fact, I don’t think he even ate at all until shortly before I got home. :-(

As for myself, I left early for my mom’s to make sure I had time to fill her gas tank first (gas prices have gone down a few pennies to 169.9 cents per litre). We had a short visit before walking across the street with her walker to her church. Having the church so close is one of the main reasons she chose to move to where she is! :-D It was an excellent service, and I quite appreciated the homily. After church, we headed out to my brother’s place.

There are two routes that I’m familiar with to get to their place. Normally, I’d take a more straightforward route on the highways, bypassing the city, to get to the town my brother lives in. My mother, however, insists on a route that takes us through a smaller city, where we have to cross an insanely narrow bridge over a major river. Which isn’t too much of a problem in my mother’s little car, but every time I take that bridge with our van, I feel like I’m either going to hit oncoming traffic, or scrape the guardrails! My mother is so insistent on taking the “right” route (which she thinks is a short cut), that when I got distracted and turned towards the city (my usual route) instead of the other direction to take a cross road to another highway, she actually got furious and started shouting at me for going the wrong way.

It took half a minute to circle around, and I was able to calm her down, but even for her it was a bit much to get so angry, so fast.

There turned out to be an irony about this.

Things were more pleasant as the drive continued. We got to the smaller city and drove through it to the bridge and…

It was closed.

Which… of course it would be. With the snow we’ve recently had, and the bridge being so narrow, now that I think about it, yeah, it would be. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn it was closed through most of the winter.

So we bypassed the bridge and got onto another highway towards the bigger city. However, in taking this route, we were passing through a more populated area, so the speed limits were all much lower. Which means that we probably ended up taking at least half an hour longer to get there than if we’d gone the route I almost took out of habit that she yelled at me for!

The irony was not lost on her!

When we realized the bridge was closed, I pulled over long enough to message my brother to let him know about the bridge, and that we would be a bit longer. As I was getting back on the road, I noticed it was just starting to snow.

The weather forecast for today was for either isolated flurries, or up to 6cm/2in of snow, depending on which app I looked at. Until then, the day had been completely clear. Within minutes, we were driving into ever heavier snowfall. Thankfully, it was warm enough that it melted as soon as it hit pavement, but visibility got quite poor in places.

When we finally got to the last leg of the journey, approaching a road I could have taken for a shorter route to my brother’s, we kept on going because it was blocked by a train! It was quite a while before we finally passed the end of the train, and I was actually starting to wonder if it would be clear of our next possible turn off when we got there. Thankfully, it was, so there were no more delays in getting to my brother’s.

The visit was absolutely fantastic. We had a fantastic time seeing each other, a wonderful dinner and, best of all, I got lots of baby snuggles!

So many baby snuggles.

Unfortunately, the snow did not lessen any and we left far earlier than we wanted to. It’s a good thing we did. While the roads were still good, they were very wet, and would have soon started to freeze. As it was, the further north we got, the snow was less, but I could see it starting to freeze over in places.

After dropping my mother off and continuing home, the highway was actually much better and almost dry, until I got about 5 or 10 minutes from home, when I drove into snow again, but it was just snowy enough to impact visibility a bit, not road conditions.

One thing we did see a lot of was deer! Not often. Just lost of them. On our way out, we passed a field that had maybe 20 deer scattered around it. On my way back, just as I was slowing down to turn off the highway, I saw what had to be at least 30 deer in a field. A group of at least 10 were just lying in the snow! I’ve seen some fairly large herds of deer in the area over the years, but this group was easily the most I’ve ever seen of white tail deer, all at once.

The girls were sweet enough to set aside portions from our basket for me, which was much appreciated by the time I got home.

I did notice that, by the time I got home, the kibble was all gone, so I topped that up before going in.

I saw very few outside cats this morning. As I was leaving, I startled a skunk, and it ran under the cat’s house. As I walked by, I could see it’s adorable, pointy little nose poking out, as it watched me leave. When I got back, there was another skunk – or maybe the same one – poking around the kibble house trays, trying to find something to eat.

Potato Beetle, meanwhile, remains in the sun room, and has his very own bowl of food that he doesn’t have to share with any other cats. Or skunks… birds… deer… When I got home, he actually made a “dash” for the door to get outside. He can’t dash very quickly right now, with his injured leg, so that wasn’t much of a problem.

What is more of a problem is the fact that the litter box remains completely unused. Which means he’s found a corner in the sun room somewhere that he’s using, instead. *sigh* It’s a good thing the sun room has a concrete floor!

Rolando Moon was following me around while I was doing my morning rounds, and enjoys running ahead, then rolling on the ground. I couldn’t resist sharing this picture, when I realized her tongue is sticking out!

What a silly kitty!

As I write this, we’re now heading towards 10pm. It’s still snowing a bit, and gotten cold enough for it to finally start accumulating. It’s not the first time we’ve had snow for Easter, of course, but usually that’s been when Easter was earlier in the month! Last night, we hit lows of -17C/1F, that I know of, and the sun room thermometer actually dipped below 0C/32F. Potato Beetle made use of the warming lamp and was just fine. Tonight, the low is supposed to be only -7C/19F, though the wind chill is supposed to be -14C/7F. Starting tomorrow, however, we’re supposed to reach highs above freezing, and stay there from now on, with lows barely dipping below freezing over the next few days. In a couple of days, we’re supposed to get a mix of rain and snow, but today’s snow should be our last blast of winter.

But then, we thought we were getting the last blasts of winter a couple of times now, only to have the forecast change, quite a lot, over and over! However, looking at our 30 year average, and record, highs and lows, I think we’ll be leveling off and warming up from now on.

Even with the snow, however, today was a fantastic Easter!

I hope you and yours also had an excellent day, filled with food, family and fun!

The Re-Farmer

Like Mother, Like Daughter

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Don’t let those sweet faces and adorable loaf shapes deceive you!

These two buggers can be real beeeyotches! Especially to each other! One moment, they’ll be all sweet and cuddly, the next, they’re picking fights.

We love them anyway.

The Re-Farmer

The digging begins

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Checking the weather this morning, my app told me we were still snowing. Which was a surprise to me, since I couldn’t see any snow falling out our window! :-D Eventually, looking out a window with dark tree trunks in the background, I could finally see the tiniest of flakes.

There were 394 emails of images from the garage cam waiting for me this morning. It would have been more, except I made sure to clear the inbox before going to bed. From the looks of it, the heaviest snow stopped hours ago, but with the infrared flash, all it takes is a single snowflake to trigger the camera to take an image and send it to me.

Though I did see at least one with deer image, that happened while I was outside, digging.

There was a drift in front of the sun room door, but I was able to open it wide enough to get through. It’s a salvaged door, so I stopped opening it as soon as I could hear it cracking! LOL

The main thing was that I could get out and get to where the snow shovels were sitting. I’d even thought that I could put one in the sun room, yesterday, but completely forgot to actually do it!

The first job would be to dig my way to the kibble house. Unfortunately, the way the winds swirl around this corner of the house, a drift forms right under the kibble house roof and snow gets into the kibble house itself.

We were supposed to build a smaller version of this for the water bowls. We really need to get that done for next winter. With the three structures around each other, they should shelter each other and keep this from happening. At least, not as much as happens now.

While I was shoveling, some kitties patiently waited for their kibble!

There was a lot more snow inside the kibble house than I expected!

Once that was clear, I made sure to set out the food and water before continuing on, so they could have a chance to eat.

That drift between the kibble house and their shelter is right on top of a kibble tray. That was my next goal.

As soon as it was clear, I added more food for the kitties that are too shy to go into the kibble house. Then it was time to dig a path to the shrine and uncover the kibble tray there, for the even shier cats.

That took a lot of digging. This one needed an ice chipper, as the chunks of old snow underneath had frozen.

The main issue with all the digging, however, was the snow itself. It’s still relatively warm for such things, so the snow is fairly wet. Not only did that make for heavier snow, but it was sticky. I’d throw a shovel full, and half the snow would stick to the blade. I’d have to knock it off, then shovel it away again.

The kitties fed and watered, it was time to turn my attention to the next path.

I needed to dig my way across the south side of the house, then to the feeding station, before I could leave feed out for the birds and the deer.

The deer were not as patient as the kitties!

Look what I found!

I’d put our winter sowing experiment in the snow on the south side of a path, originally, but as the snow melted and became less stable, I moved them here, and they got completely buried.

I didn’t take the snow off the top. I figure it’ll melt into the containers a fair bit, through the open tops and the air circulation holes on the shoulders. I’m also not bothering to dig out the rest of the concrete stairs yet, since we’re not using that door.

This is how the south side path looked when it was done. I also dug out the well cap.

On the south side, I dug a path as far as the lane that was cleared for the septic truck to get into the yard. As amusing as it is to show how deep the snow it along the paths, this is a more accurate representation of how much snow we actually got.

I’d say, about 8-10 in/20-25cm, at most.

I didn’t dig the rest of the way to the compost heap. We can get through that with our boots, and it’s going to all melt away fairly soon, anyhow.

The path along the east side of the house was mostly blown completely clear, even as the snow drifted into the lilacs and cherry trees. Even the low sloped roofs on the east side of the house were blown clear of snow.

Clearing this path went MUCH faster! :-D

The snow drifted over where I usually put seed, under where a bird feeder should be hanging, but I didn’t bother clearing that. I dropped the seeds on the exposed grass, closer to the house.

I’m sure the birds and deer will be fine with that. ;-)

The snow was coming down harder by the time I was done, though it’s slacked off again. The next path to dig is the path to the garage, and maybe to the burn barrel.

That’s something the girls will take care of, later.

Once that’s done, we’ll have an idea of whether or not we can get out of our driveway. I’m seriously considering trying to start that old gas powered snow blower again. If we could get that going, we could clear the driveway. If we can’t… well, we’ll see how things go over the next few days. If it’s not too deep, I might break out little Spewie. The temperatures over the next while are supposed to remain below freezing, light snow is supposed to continue through tomorrow, and we’re even supposed to get a bit more snow on Easter Sunday, so it’s not like anything is going to be melting away anytime soon.

It sucks that this happened over the Easter weekend, when we actually want to get out and get together with family. If it weren’t for that, I’d be just fine with getting all this extra moisture. Once it does finally melt away, it should be great for when it’s time to plant our garden!

The Re-Farmer

Watching the radar

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Things are still looking pretty good out there, though the daytime temperatures are definitely on the colder side. The storm alerts remain, with snow predicted to start in the wee hours, tonight. The local “looking ahead” notification on my phone’s app now reads, “A snowstorm from late tonight into Friday afternoon with blizzard conditions tomorrow and accumulations of 40-60 cm.”

That’s 16-24 inches. Yesterday, the high end of the local prediction was up to 45cm/18in.

The main alert has changed a bit. I no longer see the warning for up to 80cm/31in in some areas.

Winter Storm Warning

Issued at 04:27 Tuesday 12 April 2022

Hazardous winter conditions are expected.

Major spring storm poised to wallop southern Manitoba beginning overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning and lasting until Friday morning. Widespread snowfall accumulations of 30-50 cm accompanied by northerly winds gusting 60-70 km/h giving zero visibility at times in snow and blowing snow.

A Colorado low will move towards Minnesota Tuesday night bringing a heavy swath of snow through most of southern Manitoba. The snow will start early Tuesday evening near the International border then push northward throughout the night. By Wednesday morning heavy snow will be falling in much of the area as the storm continues to push northward. Strong northerly winds will develop with this system and persist into Friday morning as the low slowly pivots through Minnesota on it’s way into northwestern Ontario.

For the City of Winnipeg and points southeastward, a break in the snow may occur on Wednesday afternoon or evening before snow re-intensifies overnight into Thursday. 15 to 20 cm is likely by Wednesday afternoon, with a further 15 to 20 cm likely with the second area of snow overnight Wednesday through Thursday and Thursday night.

By Friday morning, widespread snowfall accumulations of 30 to 40 cm are likely.

Travel will become increasingly difficult as the day progresses Wednesday, with widespread highway closures a near-certainty. By Wednesday evening even travel within communities may become impossible as the heavy snow and strong winds continue… and more of the same is expected on Thursday.

Do not plan to travel – this storm has the potential to be the worst blizzard in decades. Stock up on needed supplies and medications now. Power outages are likely, rural areas in particular should be prepared for extended outages.

Conditions should begin to improve on Friday as the winds taper off and the heaviest snow moves into northern Ontario…although the clean-up after this storm will likely last well into next week.

###

Rapidly accumulating snow will make travel difficult. There may be a significant impact on rush hour traffic in urban areas. Heavy snowfall accumulation combined with strong winds may cause damage to trees or other structures. Poor weather conditions may contribute to transportation delays.

Winter storm warnings are issued when multiple types of severe winter weather are expected to occur together.

As I write this, the main body of the system is over North Dakota as mostly snow, shifting to mostly rain across Minnesota. Though the system is being pushed almost straight North, it’s going East enough that it looks like the most severe weather will pass over the southern border where Manitoba and Ontario meet, with the rain in Minnesota turning to snow quickly, as it heads into Ontario. The system is very wide, from East to West, but it’s now looking like Saskatchewan is going to be spared the worst of it. My nephew and his family are still thinking of making the drive out, but a day later than originally planned.

We’ll see how things actually turn out.

Until then, things continue as usual.

Ghost Baby has been coming out every morning, of late, and not being a ghost at all. My guess is that it’s because she’s pregnant and very hungry.

Just look at those silly kitties, crowding around the one tray on the ground, when there are four other trays inside the kibble house! Altogether, I saw 14 kitties this morning.

While switching out the memory card on the sign cam, I was finally able to find something – it just had to wait for more snow to melt, and the leaf litter to dry before I could see it.

This is one of the closures from the trail cam. I’d been able to find the wire latch, but the black plastic leaver with the hinge were too dark to see on dark wet ground.

Of course, it’s the top latch that broke. The bottom latch is still intact and should be enough to keep the camera closed enough for the weather seal to keep working, but with this latch broken, there is more of a possibility that moisture will get in.

There are a lot of things I like about this camera, but it has one major failing. I cannot handle our cold. When the temperatures drop, the LED screen stops working, and I have to warm it up with my hands to be able to see the settings while changing the micro disc card. Any colder, and it simply stops recording and the batteries freeze. At least it does start working again on its own, when the batteries warm up again. And now I find the plastic becomes more brittle due to the cold, too. At least I hope it’s due to the cold. Otherwise, it’s just cheap plastic.

Ah, well. Live and learn.

I would still recommend this camera is you live somewhere with warmer winters than what we get. For most of Canada, however, I’d say don’t bother. There are other brands with the features this one has that I like. They cost a lot more, but you get what you pay for!

Meanwhile…

We are still working on our Easter preparations. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to the blessing of the baskets on Saturday, but we’re still making it. This year, we’re doing the eggs differently. Instead of dying them in the shell, we’re doing different types and colours of pickled eggs. Right now, we’ve got pink pickled eggs in the fridge, using the brine from our out pickled beets. We’re also going to do a soy sauce brine for brown, and turmeric brine for yellow. I boiled up a whole bunch of eggs already, and finished peeling the last of them this morning. We have just enough mostly-undamaged eggs to do 6 of each type of pickle… and a bunch of ugly ones for egg salad. :-D After that, the only thing we have left to do is bake our fancy Easter bread. :-)

Easter has always been my favourite Holy Day, and our basket tradition the one I’ve always looked forward to the most!

The Re-Farmer

A lovely morning

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For all the insane blizzard warnings we are getting right now, today had quite a lovely morning! The sun was shining, and we were a relatively warm 3C/37F while I did my rounds. In fact, even as I write this, as we slide into the evening hours, the temperature has remained the same.

The outside kitties were out in full force, though I only saw a dozen of them at a time.

I noticed Chadiccous had a black more on one cheek. He doesn’t stay still much as I pet him, but it looks like he’s got quite a scratch across it; the black turned out to be dried blood. He seems okay, though.

It may have been warm(ish) and sunny, but the winds were pretty high. You can just see a bit of it in the photo, but the snowmelt along the driveway actually had surprisingly high waves rippling across.

Yesterday, I’d finally taken a shovel out and freed up one side of the gate, so we can now close it again.

The slide bar that holds the two sides together shows how much one, or both, gate posts have shifted since the hinges were repaired from the damage our vandal did, and the newly painted gates re-hung. The bar used to slide as far as you can see where the paint has been rubbed off, and there was no gap. As it is, the gap is lessened because I had to push the bar down, so I could slide the pin through, below. That screw that’s being used as a pin keeps the bar from sliding back, as the wind shifts the gate back and forth.

For now, we can close the gate again, though I think I’ll make it a habit of opening the gate in the morning, then locking it up again in the evening. With our restraining order in place, our vandal seems to be behaving, and we do get unexpected deliveries during the day.

At the very least, with the blizzard we are supposed to be getting, I think I’ll make sure the gate is open before the snow hits, just in case. I don’t want to end up with the slider bar freezing in place and having to dismantle it to open the gate, again!

I’m still holding out hope that the storm will not be as severe as predicted, but just in case, we are prepared to hunker down for a while.

The Re-Farmer

Matched set!

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This morning was warm and sunny enough that my husband set up the cats’ favourite perch. He opened the inner door in the dining room and set up the little folding step ladder, so they can bird watch out the window of the outer door.

It immediately got claimed by the two biggest boys.

That’s Layendecker and Cheddar. What a matched set those two are! Their sizes and shapes are so alike, if they weren’t wildly different colours, we’d have a hard time telling them apart.

Then there’s tiny little Turmeric underneath, having tried repeatedly to get up on the ladder with them, but unable to squeeze in.

She looks so disappointed.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, and yes, spring really is trying to arrive

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This morning, I got to pet Nosencrantz’s mother, Rosencrantz.

Not for too long, though, as she stops eating when I pet her, and I knew she was hungry.

Her boy, Toesencrantz, was hungry enough to come to the corner of the tray, but not hungry enough to let my near him!

Altogether, I counted a dozen cats this morning.

While switching out memory cards on the gate cam, Rosencrantz came RUNNING up to me for pets.

She’s so… elegant looking… :-D

It’s April 9 as I write this. Spring has been with us for a few weeks now.

Honest.

In about a month and a half, we’re should be starting to plant some things in here.

Honest.

See? Spring!

No, these are not pussy willows. There are leaf buds on a huge poplar at the fence line.

Getting very tired of snow.

The Re-Farmer

Morning snuggles

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I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning, because of this little lady.

She actually slept with me for several hours and, when I tried to get up, she kept shifting in circles, slamming herself down against me for snuggles, then repeating the process.

Considering she still spends most of her days in her cubby hole, who was I to say no to cuddles, while she was willing to take them? :-)

The Re-Farmer