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Brutal!

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Today was supposed to be warmer. Technically, it was. When I headed out to feed the yard cats this morning, it had warmed up to -13C/10F, which was already warmer than yesterday’s high.

The wind, however, had other ideas.

Today, we’re supposed to have winds of 30kph/19mph, with gusts up to 50kph/31mph This morning, it was coming from the south, which means it was hitting us almost dead on. Yes, we have trees to the south, but the wind funnels between the barn and the trees, and the rest is pretty open.

It. Was. Brutal.

When I got inside and checked, the windchill was at -33C/-27F. As I write this, we’ve warmed up to -11C/12F with a wind chill of -29C/-20F

When I got into the sun room, I found that all the kibble trays on one side – where the heat lamps are – were empty, but the kibble trays on the other side still had lots of kibble. We have both the inner and outer door to outside tied off so that there’s just enough room for a cat to squeeze in and out, but when the winds blow in from the south, it still gets through the doors – and right over the kibble trays. Plus, those trays are on concrete. So are the other ones, but we have pieces of rigid insulation scattered around, and the heat lamps, in the area.

Outside, I found there was still kibble on the cat house roof and all the kibble trays in the kibble shelter. From this direction, the wind actually swirls around between the three shelters forming a U shape, and snow was dusted over all the kibble. The water bowl house didn’t have snow in it, but the heated water bowl had a thick later of frost around the rim.

The food bowls at the shrine feeding station had snow in them, of course; there’s not much shelter there, so I knocked them empty and added more kibble. Not much. I want to encourage the cats to use the catio, which is quite sheltered in comparison. There was still kibble in that bowl, too. The water bowl is frozen, but it’s a metal bowl now, so I could easily knock the ice out for refilling. The cats are definitely using the catio. I just with the more feral cats would use it more, and not run away when I come close. I didn’t see Sprout this morning, but the white with grey tabby spots had gone into the catio for food, only to run away when I came back with hot water. Except it wasn’t hot anymore, by the time I was filling the bowl!

The covered greenhouse is doing much better. The thermometer in there showed about -10C/14F, and there was almost no wind getting in at all. The water bowl in there is a large, double walled plastic bowl that used to be a heated water bowl. When it died, I just cut off the cord and kept using it. With that one, I took the bowl outside and used a hatchet to chip out a “bowl” in the ice before putting it back in the covered greenhouse. When I came back with the jug of hot water, I found a fluffy kitty at it, trying to “drink” the broken bits of ice that were still in it.

I’m happy to say, I saw that kitten coming into the sun room later. It almost ran off again when it saw me, but I backed off and gave it a chance to go into the warm zone, where it stayed.

Before going inside, I did a head count. I counted 25 cats and kittens – then two more came in! So 27 cats in the sun room alone, all crowded around the three food trays and heated water bowl, with kittens jamming themselves into a pile in one of the cat caves they like so much better, and in various beds and perches. There would also have been 3-5 cats in the isolation shelter, plus 2-4 ferals that disappear into their hideouts in the outer yard. With that cold wind, they were spending as little time outside as possible!

When we have a chance, we need to open up the roof on the cat house. I think the heat bulb in there has stopped working. It could have been unplugged or something; I can’t see well enough through the windows to tell. What I can tell is that the snow on the roof above where the heat bulb is, has not been melting away. The cats take full advantage of the warm spot, but there doesn’t seem to be one right now. Not that we can open it up today. The wind would be blowing right against the inside of the roof if we open it now.

When adding straw under the shelf I added to the water bowl shelter, I took out a cardboard box the cats loved to hang out in. I’d set it on a shelf outside the bathroom window, and they quite liked going in there, but it kept getting knocked down. Today, I flattened it and put the cardboard under the big kibble tray on that side of the sun room, as insulation from the concrete floor.

Yesterday, I cleaned out the litter boxes in the sun room and today, I’m seeing they’re actually being used. At least when there’s digging involved. I’m still finding hidden messes frozen to the concrete floor in places, but they are figuring out how to use the litter. That’s a pretty big deal, with so many of the cats being more feral than not.

There’s a benefit to this!

I sent some pictures from this morning to the rescue chat group, including this one.

I soon got a response asking if the fluffy orange one – Colby – is friendly, because he would be easy to place. I explained their status as ones we’ve been able to sneak pet at times, but no. Not socialized. We have, however, made more progress with them than three years of trying with their mother!

They’d previously mentioned that long haired calicos like Kohl are quick to place, so I mentioned that she is very friendly – and that she needs someone who can take care of that glorious coat! I can feel the matts forming when I pet her. If they felt she could place her, we could grab her any time.

In the end, it was worked out that as soon as she (the same person who took other cats from us already) has her isolation room freed up after an upcoming spay, she can take Kohl, some time before Christmas. Kohl is already spayed, so that makes things easier, too.

It’s taken me quite a long time, with many interruptions, writing this post. It’s now almost 1pm. We’re up to -10F/14F right now, with a wind chill of -26F/-15F. It’s supposed to keep snowing for most of the day, too. A light snow, but we should have a few centimeters accumulated before it stops.

One of the books I ordered on cyber Monday has reached our post office. The “40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead” one.

I’m not going anywhere today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a more pleasant day to head out.

I’m going to have to remember to untuck the block heater plug and start plugging the truck in!

For now, I’m going to hibernate as much as I can, and work on some crafty projects. I have my Christmas decorations to work on but with the state of my hands right now, I’ve started to make a hat on a circular knitting loom, instead. It’s been a long time since I’ve done loom knitting, so it’s going to be a practice hat. 😁

I’m getting too old for the cold.

The Re-Farmer

What a drop! Here’s some Christmas cheer

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Good grief!

Yesterday, we had a high of -9C/16F. I am so glad I got my mother’s grocery shopping done then, because, wow, did temperatures drop!

This is what it was like before I headed out to give the outside cats food and warm water.

As I write this, it’s just turned 9:30, so it’s been 2 hours. We’re at -20C/-4F, and the wind chill is now at -36C/-33F, so it actually feels colder now than it did earlier! Our expected high is supposed to reach -17C/1F, then we’re supposed to get warmer over the next couple of days.

Today is a good day to stay home.

And for the yard cats to stay in the shelters!

Kohl’s long fur may be getting matted, but it sure it good insulation. In the next couple of pictures, you can see the cats and kittens congregating around the heat lamps. The wall thermometer in the sun room was reading about -10C/14F, which would be a bit colder than the ambient temperature, due to where it’s located. The cats have their warm spots to hang out. In the last picture, you can see the isolation shelter crowd. The thermometer in there was covered, though, so I couldn’t see what it was reading.

With all the stuff going on, I completely forgot to do my usual posts for the start of Advent. We haven’t even dug out any Christmas decorations yet. I started crocheting this year’s hand made decorations but I might have to start doing that in the living room. The cats have stolen some of the pieces. I found one, this morning, but there’s another that’s still missing.

So, to try and get into the Christmas spirit, here’s a bluesy version of We Three Kings for you to enjoy!

The Re-Farmer

Yard cats and how much does that cost???

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Today was my day to go to my mother’s to do her grocery shopping, but first, I headed out for my morning rounds and yard cat feeding.

I counted 26 or 27 this morning. In this picture, a well fed group is under the higher wattage heat bulb. When I did the evening feeding, I noticed none where hanging out under the lower wattage heat bulb, which is closer to the floor. I checked it and there was no heat coming off of it. It was plugged in, the switch was on but, nothing.

No. It wasn’t burned out.

Somehow, it was unscrewed, just enough to cut power to the bulb! The heat cover was also loose from its threads. I’m not sure how the cats manage to do this!

I headed to my mother’s earlier than usual, as I wanted to get her grocery shopping done before the home care aid arrived for her lunch assist. When I got there, she had actually started some vegetables cooking on her own. She does things in stages, so she can sit down frequently.

After double checking and modifying her list that we put together when I was there on Saturday, I headed out. There wasn’t much on it, so I was done quickly. Fast enough that I took the time to stop at a little department store along the way. I know my mother won’t be able to do a Christmas tree, and very little decorating, if any, so I wanted to get her something festive. I ended up finding a little tree set, complete with a string of lights, small enough to sit on her dining table. Then, spur of the moment, I got her a Hickory Farms set with a sausage, crackers, cheese and mustard.

When I got them out and showed them to her, making sure she knew that these were gifts from me, not something I got with her grocery money (because that would have been her first thought), she got all angry with me for getting her gifts. Especially the Hickory Farms pack. With that one, I opened the box and showed her what was in it, and saying it was something to go with her tea, if she wants, or to bring out if she has company. She was still angry with me.

Which is what I expected, really. My mother has never known how to accept gifts graciously, that I can remember. I know that she will eventually enjoy them, but will likely never admit it. At least not to me!

As I was putting her groceries away, the home care lunch assist worker arrived. Since I was there anyhow, she didn’t stay and I took care of making my mother’s lunch for her, and finishing off what she had started cooking, doing all her dishes, etc. At one point, she asked me to look for something in her cupboards (we never found it), but she has a bunch of stuff that she would like to take. These are things she brought from here at the farm – glasses, bowls, etc. – but had never used. They are, however, vintage things that we would actually keep and use. Especially my younger daughter, who really appreciates such things. They are fragile and just out of my reach, though, and we decided today was not a day to drag out the stool and start taking them down. Mostly, she’s just happy to know that they are claimed and won’t end up disposed of in some way.

I wasn’t in any hurry to leave today, as my husband messaged me to let me know there was a parcel to pick up. The post office was almost closed for 2 1/2 hours over the lunch period. Which meant I had time to do all my mother’s dishes, make room in her fridge, and prep containers of food to cool down before they would go into the fridge.

I did remember to go through my mother’s lock box. I knew there would be one bubble pack with her Sunday bedtime meds still in it. Those turned out to be the only ones in the pack. Another pack had only a Monday morning bubble with meds in it. I took both out and set them into a pill organizer she has, so the packs could be thrown away, and left a note in the lock box for the next med assist person. My mother will be getting her refills soon (which the pharmacy will no longer deliver to her, at my request; I will pick them up), so the lock box was going to need the space.

For some reason, the home care aids keep locking more and more of my mother’s pens into the lock box. They have a form to fill out, with each med assist. There should be one pen with their folder. Instead, it seems they use a pen from her table, then lock it up into the box. I’m guessing the pens fall to the bottom while the next care aid moves it to unlock it, so they don’t see it and grab another one… which gets locked into the lock box. There was one time I wanted to make my mother’s shopping list, but couldn’t find any of my mother’s pens in the container she has for them on her table. On a hunch, I went into the lock box. I found six pens in there!

While doing my mother’s shopping, I noticed some very good sales at the grocery store, so after I was finished at my mother’s, I went back to do a bit of shopping of my own. I actually bought beef today! They had a sale on tri tip that was at $6.99 a pound. That’s lower than ground beef is right now. I got a few other things, as well.

I did NOT get chocolate chips, though.

*gasp*

Good grief!!!

I was at Costco, yesterday, and their Kirkland brand chocolate chips were over $30 for a 2kg/4.4lbs bag. What gets me is not only how much more expensive the Kirkland branch chocolate chips are here, but that they are more expensive than the name brand chocolate chips – both are semi-sweet – in a 2.4kg/5.3lb bag.

I recall, two or three years ago, that there were predictions of the price of chocolate going up, due to things like weather damage, pests and disease. Add in everything else involved in production and processing going up and adding to the price, it’s really gotten insane. It takes a few years for the increase in prices of cocoa beans (they tripled) to affect retail prices, but now I’m seeing that there is a recovery and supply is increasing. Prices might start to ease a few months from now, though probably not by much. The beans may not be as expensive, but all the other costs are still going up.

That done, I still had time before the post office reopened, even with how long the drive it, so I ended up going to the local Chinese restaurant for a late lunch.

The store the post office is in is an old style general store that includes a liquor section, right next to the post office window. As I was waiting for my parcel, I started looking at the nearest display and spotted a new wine, with the label stating it was from our province. The postal clerk saw me looking and told me that the wine is actually produced locally. As in, just off the highway that runs through our little hamlet! There was a semi-sweet and a ginger and lemon, both sparkling white wines.

I ended up getting a bottle of ginger and lemon. It only cost $20. Technically, my mother bought it, since she gave me $20 in cash for gas. 😂😂 (It costs almost $30 a trip to go to her place, with the current local prices.)

I’m now debating: do we taste test it now, or save it for Christmas? 😁

With the extra stuff, I sent a message home and my younger daughter was sweet enough to come out and open the gate for me, then help bring the bags to the house. It was a bit early but, once everything was in and I still had my boots on, I took care of feeding and watering the outside cats, and doing my evening rounds, while my daughter put stuff away.

Then, opened up our parcel and go it set up, but I will write a review on that in my next post!

See you there…

The Re-Farmer

New Costco shop: this is what $563 looks like

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Today, my daughter and I made it into the city for our Costco shop, where we checked out a new location.

First bonus about this location is that we don’t need to drive through the city to get to it. It’s actually outside the bypass highway around the city. No city traffic, no frequent stops at lights, etc.

First down side: it’s near some pretty major event infrastructure, as well as some new apartments that weren’t there the last time we drove by here, years ago, so it shares entry lanes. Which includes two roundabouts.

I really dislike roundabouts. Yes, I understand efficiency of the design. I just have no faith at all in other drivers. The city we lived in before moving here had several roundabouts we had to go through regularly, much larger than the ones we had to use today, and they sucked when traffic was high.

Thankfully, traffic was not high.

When we first drove in, the parking lot looked really full. Our first stop was the gas station, which had more pumps than the other locations we’ve gone to. That went really fast.

Also, gas there was $1.139/L, instead of the $1.299 everywhere else. It cost me “only” $46.47 to fill my tank from a little over half.

As for the crowded parking lot, that turned out to be just the area closest to the entry. Once we got past a certain point and could see the rest, we found there was plenty of space to park.

The location is somewhat bigger than the others we’ve been to and, while they matched the layout of other locations pretty well, a few things were changed up. One of them was where the cat supplies were set up! We finally found it, pretty much opposite of where they are typically kept.

The shop itself was… well… okay, I have to admit. I hate shopping and I hate crowds, not that it was particularly crowded today.

I really hate it when people with half empty carts expect me, with my flat cart, to stop on a time to avoid hitting them as they wander and weave, not paying any attention to what’s around them.

Having said that, I was ready to abandon my flat cart only twice this trip.

My daughter is a sanity saver.

One of the things they have that’s different is their sushi bar, which was added on to where they have their in store made heat and eats, like Shepard’s Pie and chicken pie. I wasn’t able to check it out too thoroughly, though, because there was a lot of cart traffic and looky-loos. When pushing a flat cart, I’m just not flexible enough to get around everyone, though I still couldn’t see much even when I left the cart with my daughter and tried looking again.

Their food court menu was also different. They had sushi on the menu, but they also had their Montreal Smokes Meat sandwiches, too. The other locations dropped those from their menu, years ago. I was really looking forward to doing lunch after we finished our shopping.

It didn’t happen.

This is what $563.72 looks like.

That really isn’t much on there at all.

So, this is what we got today, starting with the non-food (at least, not for humans) items. There’s two 9kg bags of kibble – we have a good supply, but this should ensure we don’t run short at the end of the month – one case of wet cat food, a case of puppy pads, toilet paper and a dish detergent refill jug.

For drinks, there’s a case of Monster – yay! Finally in stock again! – a case of Coke Zero and a 3 pack of Oat Milk.

For meats, I got two rotisserie chickens, because it was cheaper than buying any of the uncooked chicken options. The fresh made sausage section was bigger and had new varieties, so we picked up a pack of Greek sausage, and one of Gouda and Cranberry. I also got two panini packs for sandwiches. That was it for meat. Beef prices were heart stopping. I should know better than to even look!

For dairy, we got a 4 pack of cream cheese, sour cream, 5 pounds of butter and a 2 pack of goat cheese. My daughter also grabbed some grated Parmesan, which I’ll be paid back for. We normally get blocks of cooking cheeses, but we still have plenty. I was sorely tempted to try new cheeses, though, as their cheese selection in much larger and more varied! Not in today’s budget.

In the frozen stuff, we got a box of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.

In breads, we got two 2 packs of rye bread and two 2 packs of tortilla wraps.

In the odds and sots, we got two large containers of mayo, a box of mixed instant oatmeal, a double flat of eggs (60 eggs) and a sushi platter to be supper for the girls. I meant to get something for my husband and I as a quick, heat and eat supper but I couldn’t find anything that both my husband and I can eat. More and more foods make him feel sick after eating, as if he were having a lactose intolerance reaction, even if there’s no dairy in the food. So I ended up not getting anything. It’s getting much harder to get food for him.

I was still thinking of going to the food court but by the time we were heading for the check out line, not only did I not want to have refrigerator/freezer items sitting out so long while we ate, I had basically lost all patience with being around people. In fact, we didn’t even finish going through all the food aisles. Aside from the usual cart traffic issues, I kept getting stuck behind one older couple that kept weaving back and forth in the middle of the aisles, stop suddenly, or split up and be doing the same thing in two aisles at the same time. We even ended up blocked by them again, while trying to get the the checkouts. At least I was able to get past them, though someone else was blocking the aisle from the other direction that I had to get around. We weren’t any any hurry, but I get really tired of trying so hard to not be in the way with my big flat cart, only to have to deal with people who are oblivious about being in the way. Even as lightly loaded as ours was today, flat carts are not easy to maneuver!

So… yeah. That’s all we got today. A whole 35 items.

Once we were loaded up and heading out, things went smoothly. The only down side was my not eating yet. On the way out, we’d stopped to pick up some energy drinks and I got a bag of beef jerky. That was all I’d eaten all day, and it was about 1pm as we were leaving the city. On the way home, my daughter insisted we stop for food. I was thinking a quick stop at the gas station in my mother’s town that we had to pass through; the one that has the best fried chicken, but she was thinking an actual sit down restaurant. There’s a restaurant right on the highway that is under new ownership and completely redone that she hasn’t been to yet, so we ended up stopping there and she treated me to breakfa… lunc… an early supper?

By the time we were done, it was late enough for the post office to have reopened for the afternoon, so we made a quick stop there (my expected items have not arrived, including something that got mailed more than a month ago. Thanks, striking Canada Post.) before finally getting home. Just in time to feed the outside cats after unloading the truck!

No more softening the kibble. It’s just too cold. Some of the trays still had frozen kibble from yesterday stuck to them!

Today, we reached a high of -12C/10F. Which isn’t too bad, except even the slightest breeze made it feel much colder. Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer, which is good, because I’m going to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping. Overnight lows over the next while are expected to drop below -20C/-4F Looking at the long range forecast for December is just an exercise in crazy. This morning, I was seeing some pretty nasty drops in temperature over the next couple of weeks – but then seeing expected highs of up to 5C/41F before Christmas! Looking at it again now, those days are now forecast as being below freezing, but warmer than -10C/14F Around and just after Christmas, they’re now saying we’re suppose to reach highs of -1C/30F

I highly doubt that will happen.

Anyhow. That is our Costco stock up shop for today!

Now it’s time to go through and look at what got missed, because we never finished going through the store, and what we’ll need to get locally.

For now, though, I just want to stay home and not be around people.

I’m people’d out.

The Re-Farmer

I get to stay home

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Last night’s trip to my mother’s for her bed time med and personal assist went well. I got there earlier, which she was happy with. She also was less tired looking and less confused than the night before, which was a relief. While getting various things done, I noted that she was almost out of milk, so we started a shopping list for her. I won’t be able to do her shopping until Tuesday, though, so the plan was for me to pick up some milk for her on the way over tonight. It was the only thing she was completely running out of.

The girls, sweethearts that they are, took over the outside routine this morning, so that I could sleep in.

Well.

Try to sleep in.

Once activity starts, even if it’s just going to the bathroom at 2 a.m. or whatever, the cats decide it’s time to go nuts, so I didn’t actually get much sleep at all. *sigh*

I did do the evening routine, as usual, though, which is when I found myself being observed from on high.

Kohl is such a beauty! Someone needs to adopt that cat! Someone who can take care of that glorious fur. She’s starting to get matted again, and we can’t do anything about it until things warm up in the spring, and we can shave them off.

As for tonight, it looks like I’m getting a break. I got a call from my mother, before her supper assist arrived, telling me I didn’t need to come out. She had a “spare” set of her bed time pills in one of her old pill organizers. I’d put them there myself, some time ago. One of her night visits got missed, so they ended up the only bubble left in a week’s bubble pack. These lone bubbles drive my mother bonkers, because she thinks the home care workers should just use them, when they are not allowed to touch anything outside the days marked. What ends up happening is that there’s an extra bubble pack floating around in the lock box that no one seems to get around to finishing off when the correct day comes along. Setting these aside calmed my mother down and cleared space in the lock box. I have a little notebook I keep in the lock box where I leave notes for the home care workers, and I made sure to mention that I was the one who took them out.

When my mother suggested I not come out tonight, I brought up the other things I was going to be doing, like bringing her some milk, helping with her personal care, and basically anything else she needed that home care might not be able to do. My mother insisted she would be fine. She sounded so happy to be able to tell me I didn’t need to drive out at night again, too.

So… I get to stay home tonight! I might even be able to go to bed early and get actual sleep, too.

Tomorrow is our Costco shop. I’m planning to check out a newly opened location. It’s been open for a few weeks now, so that initial rush should be done. In confirming the location, I found an article that talked about how, on opening day, there were people who had lined up all night to get in first. Which I just don’t understand. It’s not like they had any different sales or prices.

Still, it should be interesting. It’s been a long time since we’ve been to that end of the city. Now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve gone through that area since my older daughter and I drove through it during our move, 8 years ago!

The Re-Farmer

Too small!

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Well, things didn’t quite work out as planned.

My daughters and I were able to get the three female kittens that were in the isolation shelter for their overnight fast, into carriers. We were even able to double check that they really were female. Two of them were quite small, but they just needed to be over 2 pounds.

We had a later drop off time, too, so it was actually fairly light out by the time we were on the road. Along the way, we even came up with names. Sweetie for the little grey tabby, Bug for the tuxedo with eyes too big for her head, and Domino for the bigger tuxedo that is mostly black.

As we finished checking them in, someone came out to take them to the pre-surgery kennels they have (they don’t stay in the little carriers the whole time). We were heading to the truck when I decided to hit the washroom first. As my daughter headed out, she held the door for a woman bringing in a larger carrier with a calico in it. My daughter complimented the calico and the woman responded with, yes… ferals.

Ferals?

Plural?

My daughter stayed at the doors so she could hold when the woman headed out to get another carrier. I got there just in time to see the absolutely gorgeous chocolate point Siamese inside. She said it was a feral, too, then commented that she had 27.

Ah! One of my people!

We paused to chat. Which ended up being about people dumping their cats, which happens so often. She finds a lot of dumped pregnant cats.

We were just parting ways and my daughter and I were about to leave the clinic when one of the ladies at the desk, talking on the phone, called out, don’t leave yet! She was on the phone with someone at the back, and they were asking about the cats we brought. Where these “owned” cats? I explained that these were colony cats. We care for them, but they are outdoor cats and not pets.

The techs thought they might be too small, but wanted the vet to examine them, first. So we were sent to one of the rooms to wait until she was done.

When she came in, we were told their weights. Bug was the lightest at .97kg (2.1lbs). Sweetie, who we thought would be lighter, weighed in at 1kg (2.2lbs). Domino weighed in at 1.5kg (3.3lbs). She felt she could do Domino, but felt it was just too risky to put the smaller ones under anesthetic.

We talked about their ages and I mentioned they were all around 6 months old. She looked stunned and said she would examine them again and look at their teeth.

When she came back, she told me that they still had baby teeth. There was no way they were over 6 months.

Thinking of the litters we’ve had, I felt they would have been born in July, at the very latest, which still would have put them at over 5 months. I was sure Sweetie, at least, was one of Slick’s five, which would have made it older, though much smaller than her siblings. If they’re under 6 months old, though…

Suddenly, we don’t know where these kittens came from! We had two really late litters. Frank’s kittens, none of which survived the weaning stage, and the tiny ones I found in the collapsed shed that we are sure were Brussel’s second litter, except Brussel disappeared. That last litter was born so late in the season, there were no lactating creche mothers around to nurse them, except Frank, and Frank was already weaning hers.

So it’s possible we had younger kittens show up and didn’t really notice them as new among the crowd – some of them look so very much alike. I just have a hard time seeing that. Bug has a very distinctive look, too. I’ll have to go back over my older photos and see if I can at least spot Bug. Sweetie would be harder to identify.

Anyhow.

Once it was decided it was not safe for them to be spayed, my daughter and I packed them up and headed home.

In the first picture above, there’s Sweetie on the left, Bug in the middle and Domino on the right.

Along the way, we talked about what steps to take next. Do we keep them in the isolation shelter and “fatten them up”? With warmth and regular food, they would hopefully get bigger faster, but who knows how long that would take. In the end, we decided to set them in the isolation shelter again, give them a cat soup treat, and then open the shelter up again later in the day. You can see them in the next picture of the slide show above, after finally breaking their fast!

I ended up treating the rest of the outside cats, too. I mixed up a very thin cat soup using several cans of wet cat food, then poured it over the trays that still had dry kibble in them.

We didn’t see Frank this morning, but she’s in there, between the short haired calico (Sprig) and the long haired tabby. I even saw Sprout today! It’s been a while since I’ve seen her, but it looks like she’s just being shy.

Of course, I made sure to keep the rescue group chat up to date. They were surprised about the kittens not being done, since they were all over 2 pounds, but it’s understandable. They already brought up making other appointments. For the next ones, we’ll just have to take in any adult sized cat we can grab. Which will be the males, first. If nothing else, it means they won’t be getting any of the ladies pregnant. I’d hope it would also reduce any fighting between the cats, but we’re still seeing some of that, among both male and female cats that have been fixed. Very strange.

Speaking of fixed…

Pinky has been hanging around close to the house. She’s been wanting into the closed up isolation shelter, too. I’ve been able to pet her and, aside from Colin (who is neutered) being a jacka$$ and going after her, she’s been socializing with the other cats more. That makes me happy, because she basically lived in the garage by herself last winter, and only came to the house to eat and drink.

Well, there is one plus side to coming home so much ealrier.

I can work on getting straw over the winter sown beds today, instead of tomorrow. We’re supposed to reach a high of only -7C/19F today and tomorrow. After that, temperatures are expected to drop. So the sooner I can get extra insulation on those beds, the better. Given how things turned out this past year, and the likelihood of another drought next year, winter sowing may once again be the only crops we get!

The Re-Farmer

There’s a down side…

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… to living in the boonies.

A technological one. Specifically, communications technology!

First up, the cuteness.

I’m happy to say that, so far at least, the motion detection alerts have only been triggered by cats. Not other critters!

The isolation shelter will be open for today then, if we can manage it, will have two or three cats closed up to fast overnight to get spayed/neutered tomorrow.

I got this picture the second time I was outside. The first time was to feed that outside cats and my shorter “winter” rounds.

The second time was after I was wandering around the yard, trying to get enough signal to listen to a voicemail on my cell phone.

I got a text alert that there was a message. Which means my WiFi calling has been dropped again, and a call went straight to voicemail. I don’t have enough signal to link it up again, either. At least, not indoors. Texts need far less signal, but it can still be hours before I get one, so I had to check right away. Very few people have my cell phone number, and it was most likely a call from Home Care.

It was a call from Home Care.

For the next three nights, they have only a male worker available for the bedtime visits over the weekend. For all her issues with people who are not white (and all the male workers she’s seen are apparently from India), she gets personal care on these visits, so she wouldn’t want a male worker tending to her physical needs either way.

So we’re going to have to cover for her visits on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. All are 9pm visits.

That’s a lot of driving, at night, in deer season.

It’s going to be much harder – and more dangerous – to cover for her visits in the winter. Daytime visits are one thing, if the weather is good, but night time visits are an issue for many additional reasons. One night? Sure. Three nights in a row? That’s going to be a problem, even if my siblings are able to cover some of them. I’m the closest. It’s even more dangerous for them to make the drive than for me.

Which wouldn’t be a problem if they would just approve her for a nursing home, like she wants!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Oh, I’m going to have fun over the next few days!

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Yes!!! It finally arrived!

The family renting most of this property had a straw bale they could spare, but they’ve been really busy. This morning, however, she was able to deliver it this morning.

I never did get a price for it. I told her I had $50 set aside for it, but when I gave it to her, I told her, I knew prices for them have gone up, and that I hoped it was enough. She said it was, but I strongly suspect they sold it to me at a loss! I tried looking up what the going price is right now, but they varied significantly depending on type of straw, quality, etc. I did say I was okay with an older bale, since it was going to be used over the septic tank and in the garden, but I don’t think they had any older bales left.

As we were talking, I asked them if they did beef shares, since the family I’d been buying from before is no longer doing direct sales. She said no, not really. The problem is that they have to go through a provincially approved butcher to process the meat, and that costs so much, they can’t sell at a reasonable price. She said, they’ve had people saying that, with beef prices as high as they are right now, they must be making lots of money, but no. They aren’t. The overhead is so high, the profit margin is extremely slim.

That got us to talking about managing things. They are pretty diversified, with beef cattle and several different types of crops, all of which requires significant equipment. Plus, they are being nickel and dimed to death by government regulations, fees, taxes, etc. She told me how, in several recent years, they’ve managed to cover the costs only because they’ve got trucks and could do some shipping to make ends meet.

It is so very hard to be a family farm these days.

I’m very thankful that they were willing to sell me a bale, and take the time to deliver it!

The next few days are going to be relatively mild, with temperatures just a few degrees below freezing. Tomorrow, I’m going to unwrap the bale and start breaking it apart. It’s closed to the septic tank, which will need the most straw. I’ll be glad to have straw instead of the insulated tarp. The tarp does the job, but it freezes to the ground, making it hard to access the tank if we need to empty it for some reason, in the winter. Plus, if I need to walk around the area, it is shockingly slippery. There’s been more than a few times where I’ve almost fallen, and that’s even without snow to make it ever more slippery!

Since it’s starting to look like we won’t be getting a lot of snow this year, I’ll be adding straw to the leaf mulched, winter sown beds for more insulation. The saffron crocuses will get some, too.

Just as important, I plan to put straw inside the catio. The box nests and self warming shelter in there will do better with a layer of straw under them. It’ll help with the food and water bowl, too. Plus, when things start melting in the spring, any snowmelt that might puddle in the catio will be under the straw, so the cats, bowls and shelters will all stay warm and dry above it. I’m even thinking of redoing the space under the shelf I put in back of the water bowl house and using straw on the floor there, too. There are pieces of rigid insulation on the floor now, which could be set up against the walls, instead.

Oh, I am so looking forward to working on all that!

After the bale was delivered, I went ahead and opened up the isolation shelter. Pinky is doing just fine, with no signs of infection at the surgical site, and has been trying to tear her way out. Which means the bottom of the isolation shelter needs more of a clean up. Even the litter boxes, from bits and chunks of insulation! That will help get things ready for the next isolation cats.

If there are any.

More on that in a bit.

Today was my day to head to the city for our first stock up shop. On the way out, I spotted these two…

They were free to leave, but chose to stay!

Also, you can see some of the insulation mess on the bottom that needs clean up.

After I got back from the shopping (which will get its own post) and unloaded the truck by the house, the outside cats got an early feeding so I could drive out and park in the garage. I then started my evening rounds.

Which is when my cell phone rang.

That always startles me. I’m so not used to it ringing, still. Chances are I only got the call because I was outside, too. I’ve got it set to use Wi-Fi calling, but that keeps shutting itself off, and getting it set up again requires access to both our Wi-Fi and a data signal at the same time. That usually means wandering around the yard until I get enough data signal to do it.

The call turned out to be someone connected with the rescue, about Friday.

They had booked three slots, with two of them for us. Did we want the third slot, to?

We ended up talking for quite a bit before the call suddenly got dropped. In a nut shell, we’re going to try for three. If we can grab Frank and any other female, that would be ideal. Otherwise, we just grab any three cats. Which would most likely be the most socialized ones that need to be done, all of which are male.

If we do end up with three males, they won’t need to be isolated, though it wouldn’t hurt to keep them in there for a few days, just in case. I wouldn’t want to have three adult cats isolated in there for two weeks. Two would be okay. Three would be too crowded. Three kittens or cattens, however, would be fine. If we do manage to get Frank and she ends up the only spay, we’d be putting the smallest kittens in there with her, just like with Pinky, so they can get the cat food and not have other, bigger cats pushing them away.

However it turns out, the isolation shelter will be cleaned up and ready.

I might even add some straw to the bottom, too!

😄

The Re-Farmer

New critter cam is up (a semi product review)

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Today was a pretty quiet day, overall. We did have a surprise at our gate around midnight. I started getting motion detection alerts and discovered a horse.

It was our vandal’s horse. Before my father passed away, our vandal used to bring his horses here at times, so when it got out, it probably remembered the way and being able to go through our driveway. I ended up sending an email to our vandal’s wife to let them know. She didn’t see it until morning, and it turned out the horse was back home, safe and sound, by then. I’m glad to hear it. A dark horse on the road at night is pretty risky!

We had plenty of cuteness this morning, of course.

If you click through the slide show, you’ll see a crowded cat cave – there are at least four kittens jammed into there! My daughter had been able to pet the Colby, the fluffy orange and white kitten, yesterday but no such luck today. The big tom visited us today, and discovered roof top dining on the cat house roof. With the heat lamp inside, it would be slightly warmer overall.

The isolation kitties are doing very well. That insulation is getting torn to shreds. I actually caught Pinky tearing at it as I was doing my evening rounds. She’ll be let out soon enough. Thursday night, I hope we can get a couple of cats in there for fasting and a trip to the vet on Friday. I’m really, hoping to get Frank. She sometimes lets us pet her and purrs when we do, but she is a bundle of nerves and still doesn’t really trust us. It’s going to be hard to get her into a carrier.

I’ve been in contact with the rescue and they asked if I decided who we’d be bringing in. I told them about Frank, but said it’ll be whoever we can catch! I let them know that we’ve had to do this before, where they knew the cats were from a colony. This clinic is good with doing whatever cats we bring in, even if we don’t know in advance which ones they’ll be. Getting strays and colony cats fixed is a big thing for them, so they are willing to accommodate.

With that in mind, when it was relatively warmer in the afternoon, my daughter and I set up the new critter cam. This is what I unboxed, yesterday.

I set it up with the app and got it charging overnight. It was set aside on my desk and, in the morning, I found it had caught one of the cats, being where it wasn’t supposed to be! Impressive, considering the camera was pointing at the ceiling all night!

The first thing to do was decide where the base plate needed to go on the little house I made for the camera, then screw that in place. The camera itself has a latch and can be easily removed, as needed.

Once my daughter and I figured out where we want to attach it to the elm tree in front of the kitchen window, we used the draw knife to shave away at the bark, and even using a chisel in one area, to make it level enough to attack to. We need to get rid of this tree entirely, so we’re not worried about damaging it.

After we got the camera arrangement attached, we had to figure out where to put the solar panel. The cord it came with is nice and long, so it can be placed quite a distance, if necessary. Our main concern was putting it somewhere the critters wouldn’t be getting at it, while still being able to face south, unobstructed. It ended up going under one of the main branch, where my daughter was able to create a flat spot to attach it to – the screws it came with aren’t long enough to go through such thick bark to the wood below. Then, between the two of us, we got the holder on and screwed the solar panel in place, which you can see in the second picture of the above slide show.

In attaching the base plate for the camera to the tree, we started hitting something that was too hard for a couple of the screws to go through. These are 3 inch screws, though, so it’s still very secure – and one of the screws that was sticking out quite a bit came in handy, to hang the excess solar panel wire off of. You can see the final set up in the second last picture of the slide show.

The last picture is of one of the stills it took while being set up. It saves stills into a cloud, but it also takes video, which gets saved to the micro SD card.

By the time we were done, there were at LOT of files to delete!

That done, and while my daughter got the evening cat feeding ready, I grabbed a litter box from the cat cage in the sun room. When there were tiny kittens in there, it was being used, but not that they’re all bigger, they ignore it. I was going to just replace the dirty litter box in the isolation shelter with the clean one. As I took the old litter box out, though, I also grabbed the cat bed that was down there. The cats were no longer using it as a bed.

They were using it as a litter box.

Ew.

I scrapped it off as best I could. Normally, I’d have set it in a bucket with some water and detergent to soak for a while, but it’s too cold for that, and I wasn’t about to bring it inside! What I ended up doing is cleaning out the old litter box, refilling it and setting it back in the isolation shelter, so they now have two litter boxes on the bottom, and no extra cat bed.

I’m glad I designed the bottom with clean up in mind. The mesh will make it a lot easier. It’s a real mess down there! Come spring, we can brush it out as much as possible, then hose it down. For now, the cats will just have to put up with the scattered sawdust mess they made on the floor, but at least they’ll have two litter boxes now.

With the camera in place and the litters done, I moved the doorway box shelter back in front of the isolation shelter, with one side wall against the front panel, to keep critters from trying to claw their way through the vinyl covering the wire mesh. Last year, that happened pretty quickly when we had cats in isolation, and cats outside were wanting in. This year, they don’t seem to have tried, but I still want to keep things as covered as possible.

One of my concerns about having the camera is that I might get too many alerts due to cat activity. I wasn’t sure how busy things would get. I know cats like to jump onto the doorway box shelter, onto the bin on one side, the chair on the other, and onto the roof. Plus, I know raccoons have been all over it, trying to get in – they are the main reason I wanted the camera, really. I have been getting motion detection notifications, but nowhere near as much as I thought I might get. Things are pretty quite in there. The only add thing is checking the notification and finding that the camera’s position has been altered slightly. Which means something moved it, somehow. I’m not sure how that would happen.

What I have discovered is that I can use the camera to check a lot more than just the isolation shelter! I can check the main door, of course, as it’s close by, but I can also check the cat shelters by the sun room, and even the catio and shrine feeding station. In the other direction, I can see quite a bit of the East yard before the tree itself blocks the view.

So far, I’m quite happy with how this camera is doing. I don’t even have the motion sensor sensitivity changed from the default (from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most sensitive, it was on 6), and it’s picking things up fine. The one issue I have with other security cameras is that they don’t pick up vehicles. Just people (or people sized critters). Which is fine if you’re using it in the city or something, but where we are, it’s vehicles that I need to monitor more than anything else. We don’t have pedestrian traffic. With this camera, we have no way to test that right now, since it’s not being used for that, so I can’t say whether it works better or not.

Depending on how things work out, what we might do is make a stand similar to what I have right now for the gate trail cam, which would allow us to set the camera up in locations where we don’t have handy trees to attach it to.

Now I’m thinking ahead to how and where we can set up the big trap and try to get some of the more feral mamas, with the camera to monitor the trap, during the winter. We would want to get the feral ladies done before they go into heat in the last winter. If we have the mild winter it looks like we will be getting, they might go into heat really early, like happened this year with several cats.

We’re supposed to get 2 cats done on Friday and, since Frank got away from us last time, we still have donated funds for one more to do, if the rescue can arrange another date for us. It’s through someone else that is able to get these super low rates for spays, and they have only a certain number of slots available, so we’ll see how that works out. After that, the cost will probably go back up. It’s still a lot cheaper than anywhere else. When I’m there on Friday, I should ask them about the possibility of last minute appointments for trapped spays of more feral cats. We have plenty of friendly males we could bring in for neuters at any time. We just really need to get those ladies done!

Well, we’ll see how it works out as time goes by. Until then, we just do the best we can for the critters.

The Re-Farmer