postaday

Good Morning

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20181207.sunrise

After feeding the critters and doing my rounds, I got to see a lovely sunrise this morning.

I noticed something interesting while walking around the spruce grove.  On the north side, there are always lots of deer tracks, between the grove and the apple trees.  The south side usually just has a few tracks from the deer jumping the gate, or down the path to the barn.  Today, I was seeing new deer tracks on top of my own boot prints along the south and east fence lines.  The deer are taking advantage of the paths I’ve made through the snow!  I find it interesting how wildlife in general will take advantage of what us humans have done, whether it’s using roads and driveways to get where they want to go, or my own boot prints to avoid stepping in snow.  Seeing the cats do it is sort of expected, since they’re so much lower to the ground.  I would not have expected it from a tall, leggy deer. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Baby, it’s cold outside!

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While doing the rounds this morning, it was -25C (-13F), with a windchill of -32C! (-25F) out there!

When I went into the sun room to give the cats their food and water, I found this.

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I thought, for a moment, that the light bulb might have burnt out, but nope.  Continue reading →

Good Morning

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Just a few shots to share with you this morning.

I was going to say I caught The Outsider, mid-meow, as I was feeding the outside cats this morning, but he wasn’t actually meowing when I took this shot.

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Too funny!

A couple of grosbeaks were trying to eat the frozen apples, left on this tree.

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These apples won’t fall, even while being pecked apart by birds.  No wonder I wasn’t able to knock down any more of them for the deer.

While I was taking this picture, I suddenly had a cat climbing up my front.  Beep Beep decided that I needed to carry her while I was doing my rounds.  She did let me put her onto a post, for a bit…

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Just a bit.  Then she jumped back on me, as soon as I got close enough!

While taking the photo, I realized why she always has one paw up like that.  There isn’t enough room on the top of the post for all 4 paws!

She was aggressively cuddly this morning. :-D

We were able to make a trip into the city this morning, to finally visit my FIL.  It’s been a while since my husband was up to the trip.  The girls and I will need to head into the city again, soon – unusual for us to go that often, but we will be doing a fair bit of running around to various places on our next trip, in preparation for Christmas.

I’ll have to remember to pick up more cat kibble.  It’s been less than a week, and we’re already finishing off one big bag!

Okay; so maybe we’re feeding a few more cats than last winter (13, compared to the 7 or 8 before).

And maybe we’re being a bit more generous on the quantities…

We are such sucks! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Frosty

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Looks like it was warm enough for a fog last night.  This morning, the trees were covered in hoarfrost.

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It was like something out of a postcard.

Beep Beep was not impressed.

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I was also escorted by Butterscotch and Rolando Moon.  Butterscotch wanted to be carried the whole time.  She did NOT want to be put down so I could take photos.  When I was finished with taking pictures, I would find her sitting on my boot, to stay out of the snow! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Morning Kitties

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This is what greeted me, as I was getting ready to head out with the cats’ food and water.

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I find it so funny that Doom Guy will sit in the empty water bowl like that!

Note the little face peeking out from the cat cave set up (top right)!

We were able to stock up on deer feed yesterday, and I picked up a new mix of bird seed.  I am hoping it is more to the liking of our local birds, plus it will be better for the hanging feeder.  When I had just the black oil seeds in there, the grosbeaks would keep trying to get at it, but the base of the feeder is sized more for chickadees and nuthatches, not bigger birds like grosbeaks or blue jays.  They could only land for a split second before they basically dropped off and flew away, not always able to get any seed, first.  They like the deer feed, and eating on the ground or platform feeder, so between the two mixes, I figure we’ll have all bases covered!

I had company while doing my rounds, of course.  This morning, it was just Rolando Moon.

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She likes to follow along, keeping her distance, but she does let us pet her.

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Though sometimes, she’ll attack our hands in the middle of a pet!  She’s quite gentle about it; when she bites, she doesn’t use enough pressure to actually hurt, and even her claws are quickly retracted.

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Then she’ll just as quickly go from biting to giving kisses!

Such a fickle girl! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Tracks and Trails

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It snowed most of the night, which means that when I did my outside stuff this morning, the only tracks in the snow were those of animals.  It was interesting to follow them along, and try and figure out what story they were telling. Continue reading →

Would you like to see my chainsaw collection?

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Oh, what a day!

It turned out rather longer than expected – and that was knowing we had multiple trips to make!

This morning, we headed out to pick up a snow blower (yay!) from the place my brother bought our riding mower from, in a fairly large town about 2/3s of the way to the city.

Since we were going to a small engine place, I remembered to bring the chainsaw collection in the garage, to see if any of them are salvageable.

In the process, I found another chain saw!

Continue reading →

Checking out the new digs

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Played around with a set up for the outside cats, in the sun room.  This is what I’ve come up with.

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I had another crocheted blanket that we used as a car blanket hanging around.  I decided to try draping it from the back of the swing bench to the back of the transfer bench.  It’s incredibly heavy, so I knew it would need support.

I have some sheets of foam insulation among my craft supplies that I thought would work.  Unfortunately, a sheet is just barely long enough to reach the backs of both benches – which means a stiff sneeze would have knocked it down, never mind rambunctious cats that are sure to jump on top of it.

After going through what was available in the room, I ended up putting one of the unused, home made plant stands on the transfer bench.  That would support one end of the sheet of foam insulation.

After draping the blanket over, I folded up one corner for access, and it immediately drooped into where the cats like to sit.  So I found another plant stand to hold that up.

As you can see by the photo, Doom Guy and The Outsider were quite ready to check out the new digs!  In fact, Doom Guy surprised me by already being in there when I first picked up the corner to open it up.  I never even saw him jump under while I was laying it out!

My husband was checking it out through the bathroom window just a little while ago, and he tells me Doom Guy was on top of the whole thing.  The foam insulation is rather bendy, but it has enough support that it should hold.  I’ll have to check it out, later, to adjust things, if needed.  I can just see a cat trying to walk across a part that doesn’t have support and pulling things down. :-D

I don’t think there is going to be much hesitation for the cats to use it.  Especially today.  Though the temperatures have warmed up, there is a nasty, bitter wind out there.  I think everyone, human and animal alike, will be staying indoors as much as possible today!

The Re-Farmer

The Things we Find: an early version?

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Since moving here, we haven’t really gone into the basements much.  In fact, it’s something I try to avoid.  I don’t even want to think about trying to clean things up there!  Especially the New Part basement.  You’d think it would be the other way around, since the stairs to the Old Part basement are so steep, with such narrow treads, it’s actually safer to go down them backwards, like onboard a ship, and the ceiling – the floors of the original log part of the house – is so much lower.  It is, however, much… emptier.  And cleaner.  We can actually get to where we need to – the well pump, the sump pump, the septic pump, the hot water tank, the furnaces.  These are all things we actually need to go down and check, too.

The New Part basement… not so much.

Continue reading →

Meet Slick and the Post Cats

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First off, a great big thank you to 53old for identifying our little squeaker.  It is neither vole nor mole, but a pygmy shrew!  No wonder I didn’t find it in my searches.  I was looking up moles, voles and rodents.  It’s not a rodent, either, so nothing like it came up.  In fact, seeing what it eats, this is a critter we want to keep around!  Which means, if we ever had the chance to rescue others, we certainly will.

While feeding the cats this morning, one of the dad cats was around.  He seems to be getting more comfortable with us – and the other cats with him (though, to be honest, for all I know, he’s really a she).  As I was going in and out of the sun room to get deer and bird feed, I found him eating with our own cats, and he didn’t try to run away.  Which is more than even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will do.

Meet Slick. Continue reading →