This morning started out pretty normal. All our usual activities. Including the use of water. Which means, of course, the pumps in the basement go off.
Well, this morning, I heard the septic pump go off, but after a while I realized it wasn’t turning off.
I waited a bit longer, and it still wasn’t turning off.
Finally, I went into the basement. Everything looked normal enough, but it was just running and not stopping.
I finally turned it off manually, so I could check the filter my brother had installed in a section of pipe running from the tank to the pump.
The filter is a sort of basket with a handle on it. When I opened the top and lifted it out, it was completely black and so clogged, it was holding liquid, and not draining!
I popped in the other basket (we switch out between two of them) and set the clogged on in a container we have in the old laundry sink to soak in detergent. Once the filter casing was refilled with water and sealed, I turned the switch back on. The pump turned on immediately, and I left it for a while.
It still wouldn’t shut off on its own.
I finally went back down and turned it off manually again.
I made sure to listen to the pipes, and I wasn’t hearing much splashing, so it does sound like the greywater side of the tank had been emptied.
While doing my morning rounds, I went to check the outflow area. It’s not an area we check often in the winter, because it’s so hard to get to. Much to my surprise, for most of the distance to the area, I was actually able to walk on top of the snow and it held my weight! All that freezing and thawing has resulted in a very hard surface.
This is the outflow. One of our jobs for when things thawed out was to clear in front of it. At some point, someone laid down what looks like a piece of metal roofing, bent into a slight curve, to direct the flow towards the pond. It is full of debris. Now, instead of flowing to the pond, it goes off to the side and towards the inner yard, and where the old collapsed log building is.
The area in front was wet, but I honestly couldn’t tell if there had been a recent outflow of grey water from the tank.
I’m hoping the problem is something as simple as the float being stuck.
Oh! The phone just rang. I called the septic guy and left a message, and he just called back.
He’ll be coming over to empty the tank this morning, and is okay with my paying him tomorrow, when we’ll have cash.
Time to go take the insulated tarp off the tank, and unlock the gate!
Fingers crossed that it’s just the float, and this will take care of it!
Judgement decided to join me while I did my morning rounds today.
While I was penguin walking over the icy driveway, he kept running ahead, then flinging himself to the ground in front of my feet! Except sometimes, he would fail because the driveway is so slippery, he paws would start skittering, instead. So he’d just run ahead and try again! 😄 I finally got to a patch of exposed gravel, where I could stop and pet him for awhile. At which point, he started running around my feet, then rolling like crazy, making it hard to pet him – or get a decent picture!😄
I counted 24 yard cats this morning, then spotted a couple more in the outer yard as I went to the gate, so my headcount was 26 today.
I contacted the Cat Lady this morning, but she has heard nothing back from the woman who was a potential adopter for Ginger. She did adopt out a cat to someone else today, and another 3 legged cat is coming in. She was talking about having them together in the separate cat room they have (along with the cat with no eyes, I believe), but they are going to the US for a while soon. I told her, no worries. The less disruption for him, the better, so it can wait. He’s stressed out enough as it is.
Plus, I don’t mind his sweet company for a bit longer. I know it’ll be better for him, but gosh, we’re going to miss him!
It’s been a very quiet and uneventful day today. I quite like those! But I did get some potential good news from the Cat Lady.
She had a potential adoptee for either Ginger or Toni. She didn’t have a very good picture of Toni, though, so I managed to get a few for her, including this one.
She filled me in on the potential adopter. They had a cat for 17 years, before losing it to age, and are interested in adopting another. They already have a three legged dog, so a three legged cat was definitely of interest! The dog is only 6 pounds – Ginger is heavier than that! He’s also the calmer one, as far as general temperament goes. Toni is younger and much more energetic. This is an older person, so I think Ginger would be better fit. They still have to go through the application process, but if this does go through, whichever cat they decide on would basically to the vet for shots and an exam, then straight to their new home, instead of the usual week or two at the Cat Lady’s first.
As we were talking, the Cat Lady told me about a struggle the shelters are having. They recently did a TNR for a stray that I believe turned out to be female. Once the cat was with them, though, she was incredibly friendly. They didn’t want to release her to fend for herself again, as she would have transitioned to the indoor life instantly. They had no room, none of the other shelters have room, and after sharing her photo and bio everywhere, they could find no one to take her in or adopt her. Even the Cat Lady had to say no. Tomorrow, the cat goes back to the streets.
It was all I could do to not say “we’ll take her!” We have too many indoors already, and I wouldn’t want another situation like what happened with Marlee escaping, never to be seen again. I still feel so bad about that.
It illustrates, however, just how difficult it is for animals in our province right now. Cats in particular. It’s just so hard to get them adopted out!
I managed to get a really good picture of the little puffball outside!
I was able to get within a couple of feet of her. I’m just going to assume she’s a she, since we’ve had no luck socializing the females. Peanut Butter Cup being the one exception.
Hmmm…. there’s a roofing nail in the grass that I missed. The cats knocked things out of the top of the shelf shelter, including a container of nails, a few days ago. This one is a lot further away than I expected to find any!
I tried to do a head count this morning, and got a different number each time. The highest was 30, and I think that one was right.
As for the indoor cats, Wolfman’s eye is improving, but looks horrible! He’s opening the eye and looking around, but we can see the inner eyelid is still very red. The eye itself is cloudy. I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady about it, and she says this is pretty normal. We can expect the cloudiness to stay for at least two weeks. A month is more typical. Her cat that had the same thing still had a touch of cloudiness over his pupil, and it’s been about a month for him. We just need to keep monitoring it.
We’ve had to start dosing the inside cats with lysine lately. Some of them have started to sneeze a lot. It seems that bringing in PBC brought in a new strain of feline herpes. As the vet explained to my younger daughter, a while back, the outside cats and the inside cats will settle into a particular strain that they get immune to, but they wouldn’t be the same strain. Once PBC was settled in and accepted enough to be part of the cuddle piles, she exposed them to her outside strain. They are strong and healthy cats, though, so they’ll be able to fight it off. The lysine will just help them get over it faster, by strengthening their own immune systems.
As for Ginger, the Cat Lady is having a hard time with her schedule right now, so it looks like we won’t be able to connect this week. Next week is spring break and Easter, so it might not happen until after Easter. We shall see.
I don’t mean a sneak pet on the back while she’s eating, either, though I did start with that. She moved away while the boys came in and dove under my hands, demanding attention. While I was petting them, I reached over and started petting her, too. She got a bit startled, but I was already giving her shoulder rubs and neck rubs, and she leaned right up into my hand instead of leaving. I even got ear skritches, which she really liked. I stopped after a little while – didn’t want to push her too far – and pet the boys a bit more, which gave her more time to eat. I did reach out again and pet her, but she didn’t like being pet on the back, compared to getting the shoulder and neck rubs.
Her neck fur is just full of hidden mats! There’s still lots of burrs stuck in her fur, too. You can see some on her side near her hip. The tip of her tail is just a matted ball of fluff stuck to a burr.
While I’ve managed to touch her before, this is the first time I’ve been able to give her a real pet! This is HUGE progress!
Now, if we can just keep it up and get her socialized enough, we can finally get her spayed!
Speaking of which…
The large animal rescue that moved just a mile away from us last summer made a post on FB. They’ve got quite a few projects in mind in the near future and were looking for everything from material donations to volunteers. One of the things they were looking for was tractor tires. We have a few, though they’re not accessible until the snow is gone, so I contacted her about it. Finding regular sized tires is no problem for her – her brother is our mechanic, so he’s always got lots – but the large tractor tires are a bit harder to come by.
As we were chatting, she asked if we expected to have kittens this year, and offered to take some. !! I told her that we probably will, and explained about not being able to socialize any of the females enough to get them spayed. She said they were planning to do fundraising for things like pet food, spays and neuters that she plans to use to help other rescues like us! We’re not officially a rescue, but with what we’re doing, we’re sort of a defacto one. They’ve had cats and kittens in their rescue, even though they mostly do large animals, and have been able to get them adopted out, so she offered to help with that, too. Of course, I happily expressed my appreciation for the offer of help!
So, between the two rescues, we might finally be able to get more cats adopted out, as well as spayed and neutered.
We’ll still probably need to get a trap for the females outside, though.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to socialize Adam well enough and not need to use a trap on her! What I really want is for her to get to the point where we can use the mat cutting combs we have on her, and get those off. I’m sure her equally long haired brother, Driver, has them, too.
When I saw all those long range forecasts saying we’d be getting consistent highs above freezing, I knew things would likely be different, but… really?
This is what it was like when I did my morning rounds; -18C/~0F, with a wind chill of -26C/-15F! That’s January temperatures!
This time of year, we all tend to be tired of the cold and snow – even after as mild a winter as we had this year – but to have such warm weather melting everything all through February, and a forecast saying it would continue, to the complete opposite is downright depressing!
The yard cats don’t seem to mind it, though!
I actually got to pet Broccoli this morning! I snuck a pet as she walked in front of me, after taking this picture, and she actually stopped eating to enjoy shoulder scritches for a little while. So far, that’s still as much as she will allow. Junk Pile, who’s licking her chops enthusiastically here, had been eating with her back to me, and I was able to rest my hand on her back. Just for about half a second, before she realized what was happening and got all startled, then moved to where she is in the photo. Altogether, I think I counted maybe 23 cats, but they were running around so much, I’m just not sure!
Yesterday, I made a quick garden tour video for the first day of spring. While I was recording inside the big aquarium greenhouse, I didn’t see that we had new tomato sprouts until I uploaded the video to my desktop. This morning there are more, and the ones that the video picked up are already much larger. So far, it’s just the middle row, plus one in another row, that are germinating.
The other seed trays, however, show no activity. These are the ones in the new seed starting trays with their grow lights, and are set above the heat vent. I think it might still be too cold for them, though. I think what I’ll do, is shift the San Marzano tomatoes off the heat mat, to the other side of the tank. The new trays, with the peppers and other tomatoes, can go on the heat mat, along with the Butterfly Flower tray. I’ll remove the domes on the new trays, since they won’t be needed in the aquarium greenhouse. That will free up the LED grow lights to put over the bin with bell peppers and thyme, to give them a bit of a boost.
Today is relatively mild, as far as the temperature goes. It’s only -8C/-18F as I write this. The windchill, however is at -24C/-11F and honestly, I think around our house, it’s actually feeling colder than that!
The historical records for today are pretty wild! Our record high was 23C/73F set in 2012, but the record low for today is -26C/-15F, set in 1974.
I well remember my childhood winters here in the 70’s. There’s a reason the “experts” were saying we were heading into a new ice age back then! It was brutal! Of course, as a child, I didn’t know any different and thought it was normal. It wasn’t.
Our earlier long range forecasts that said we were going to have highs above freezing through the rest of March and into April have been completely reversed. Now they say we’re going to have highs below freezing for at least another 10 days. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for that bloody wind!!!
One thing about the cold and wind; we’ve got more yard cats!
I got a different number, every time I tried to do a head count, but the range was still between 31 and 33 cats! And at least one – Sad Face – was “missing”. I haven’t seen more than 30 cats here in weeks.
I was happy to note that the matt of burrs in Adam’s fur seems to be almost all gone. At least the ones on her hip and side. The burrs on the tip of her tail are still there. I’m also still keeping an eye out of a printer baby with an injured back leg, but have seen no sign of a limping cat, so that’s good.
Which reminds me; I reached out to the Cat Lady about the Wolfman and his eye, sending her a picture. It was a long shot, but I was hoping donations to her rescue might be available, as we have zero vet budget right now. I wasn’t surprised when she said there was none left; she’s taking care of the rescues out of pocket again. However, she was able to give me advice, as she’s dealt with this before. She agrees with my husband, that it’s most likely a scratch from another cat. She asked if we still had some Metacam left, which we do, so we’ll be dosing him for three days. It’ll get the swelling down and reduce pain, and help it heal faster. We had to weigh him, first, to calculate the dosage.
He did not like that. 😄
Along with the Metacam, we’ll continue using eyedrops and carefully dabbing around the eye. She described the treatment regimen they did with their cat that had an eye like this. With their cat, it took about a month to heal completely – but it also turned out to have a piece of claw stuck under a lid that finally came out on its own! I don’t think we’ve got anything like that, but it’s hard to see. They ended up self treating because, when she called the vet about it, treatment would have cost at least $600. As it is right now, she’s making weekly payments to cover their bill with her usual clinic, because they still owe them thousands! They have a good working relationship with this clinic. This is the one that wouldn’t give up on Cabbages (which is now saving the lives of other cats), and a couple of other sick kittens from our place the Cat Lady took. I’ve actually lost track of how many cats they now have permanently that came from us! There’s at least four or five.
Which reminds me; they have an area prepared for Ginger. He’ll stay with them and get the standard vet care before being officially put up for adoption. He’s going to be sharing space with a very chill cat with no eyes (also up for adoption), so bullying will not be a problem! Right now, it’s just a matter of scheduling a day to connect.
I did get out today, and I am so very happy about it! I was able to get the truck into the yard, so we could load it up and make a dump run. There was just one drifted area I wasn’t sure about, but the snow is hard packed enough that the truck just climbed right over! We could never have done that with the van. It would have broken something! The truck made it through, easily.
Once the truck was by the house, the girls took care of loading it while I opened the gate, penguin walking the whole way. I had just asked them to bring the bags out, expecting to load the box myself, but by the time I shuffled my way back to non-ice covered paths, the girls were just closing up the tailgate!
I did have to laugh when I opened it up to unload it at the dump. Getting back out of the yard had sent almost all the bags flying to the cab end of the box.
There’s a reason we keep a long handled garden cultivator tool in the cab all the time! Very handy, to pull things closer.
I had considered continuing on to the town North of us after going to the dump, after my husband had confirmed they have the bio drain maintenance stuff that finally got our toilet going again, in stock. After unloading the garbage, though, I decided against the trip. The winds were even worse than at home! At least it was blowing in the right direction, so the bags I was tossing into the pit were being blown further in, rather than back at me! On the way home, I did make a stop at the post office, though, and picked up a few grocery items while I was there. There are a few other things we need to get, along with refilling the big water jugs, but that will wait until I meet with the Cat Lady in the smaller city. Next week, we’ll be doing our stock up shopping for April, so I don’t want to be making any special trips if I can avoid it.
I’m just glad we were finally able to made that dump run. We were way overdue! I am SO appreciating this truck!!! It’s such a good beast.
We should name it. Our previous van was named Sleipner. This truck needs a good, muscular name. 😂
The Re-Farmer
ps: Oh, my goodness! I just noticed the date and realized – today is the first day of spring! Winter is officially over!
Considering what time I made my last post, I’d say it was an excellent start to the day – we have a toilet that flushes again, and it’s still flushing. 😄 In fact, it’s working better than ever.
We have got to find more of that bio stuff!!! If I can’t find it locally again, I’m even willing to Amazon it.
I should call the plumber back and leave another message, saying we don’t have an urgent need for him to come out anymore. Getting that main drain pipe cleared still needs to be done, but it can wait a bit.
It’s still rather chilly out there, but we’re supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F this afternoon. With a bit more melting, we should be able to drive into the yard again, which means finally being able to load up the truck and do a dump run. The dump is open tomorrow, and highs are supposed to drop below freezing again after today (so much for the long range forecasts have highs above zero for the rest of the month!), which means our skating rink driveway is going to have a fresh layer of ice on it. At least it’s not the roads! There are some patches, of course, but for the most part, the gravel roads are clear of snow and ice.
I didn’t bring our water jugs to do our refills when I did my mother’s shopping yesterday, so I’m debating going into town today. The thing is, I’m going to meet up with the Cat Lady with Ginger some time this week – she’s not sure what day she can meet me, yet, but assures me it’ll be this week. Hopefully, they won’t have any more disasters like losing part of their roof in the high winds we got a few days ago! Since I’ll be meeting her at a half way point that’s close to a Canadian Tire, I would rather wait until then. Their refills are almost half the price as locally, plus they have a sanitizing station for the insides of the jugs. If we manage to do a dump run tomorrow, though, I might just combine trips. We’ll see.
I don’t mind hanging onto Ginger a bit longer, but he’s still being harassed and bullied, so the sooner he can be adopted out, the better.
*sniff*
Speaking of cats, check out this crowd at feeding time this morning.
If you look closely at the black and white cat on the left (Adam), you can see something in her fur. That’s a big matt of burrs! She also has some stuck in her tail. Yesterday evening, the tip of her tail was actually stuck to the burrs on her hip!
The problem is, like all the other females (including the three around her), they won’t let us near them. Even Junk Pile, who for a short time came to me for cuddles after she lost her litter, won’t let me touch her anymore.
Today, however, I had some success with Adam!
While she was eating on the roof, I came up behind her and put my hand on her back. Normally, she’d notice me and run off before I could touch her. This time, she was startled and looked at me, but then kept eating. So I started giving her shoulder rubs – and she let me! For a little while, at least. Then she moved out of reach. No matter! That was the most contact we’ve managed to get with her, ever!
In the back, on the right, you can see a tuxedo. That’s another one we can’t get near, so I’m assuming it’s female, too. That’s the one with one damaged eye. I was able to get a fairly clear view of it this morning, and half of the pupil is looking brownish now. I suspect that eye will be lost. The cat doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort, but cats are weird that way. I remember when we had Ginger in the sun room, waiting for his appointment to remove his leg, and Ginger was rolling around on the floor, leg flopping and bending all over the place, like it was nothing!
Speaking of eyes…
We need to keep an eye on the Wolfman (formerly Pom Pom). Yesterday, the girls noticed one of his eyes was red and had swelling around it. I haven’t been able to get a look at him today. It’ll take two people to check it out properly, and maybe apply some eye drops, or assess if this is going to require a vet trip.
My daughter also asked me to keep an eye out for one of the “printer babies”. That’s the term they use for all the white and grey cats, collectively, since they can be so hard to tell apart. When she was dumping out the cat litter behind the outhouse, she saw one through the trees, hop-walking while keeping one back leg off the ground. I hadn’t seen anything like that when I fed them last night, nor did I see any limping or favouring of limbs this morning, so I hope that whatever was bothering the cat healed up. The alternative explanation is, I’m simply not seeing that cat at all.
Well, I got a bit of good news from my husband, while I was writing this! He tried looking up the drain maintenance stuff on Amazon, but only found another brand. It was marketed as “green”, but I couldn’t see anything on the label about what was in it that made it work. I didn’t throw away the empty bottle of the stuff we used, so he was able to look it up by brand. It turns out another branch of the hardware store I bought it from has plenty in stock. It’s only an extra 10 minute drive away – and the dump is about 1/3rd of the way there, so it would be convenient to keep on going, after stopping at the dump.
If I can get the truck into the yard tomorrow. We really, really need to do a dump run, but the path to the garage is even more slippery now than ever!
It’s a bit nippy out there this morning. As I write this, we’re at -11C/12F, with a wind chill of -25C/-13F. We still have high winds, but not as bad as yesterday. I do see fallen branches around the inner yard, but not in areas we can get to to clean up, until the snow is gone. We’re looking at a possible high of -7C/19F this afternoon. Not bad for going out to help my mother with her errands.
Over the past few days, we had some rain, then the high winds and cold, and last night we got a light dusting of snow. The end result?
Our driveway and the flooded parts of the paths are a skating rink!
You can see where they were skidding around while trying to cross the ice! It’s frozen solid now; no need for rubber boots this morning, that’s for sure!
I counted 28 cats today, and they are definitely taking advantage of sun room to get out of the wind. Looking out the bathroom window, I was really wishing I had my phone with me to get a picture. On the platform above the heat lamp, there was at least 8 or 9 cats, all smashed together, looking at the window, creating a forest of necks, heads and ears sticking out of a furry mass! There were more in a pile on the other half of the platform, all curled up around each other on the self warming mat. It was adorably funny!
What isn’t funny is, we’re going to have to call a plumber.
For the past while, our toilet hasn’t been flushing well. Almost, but not quite, clogging. I tried plunging it last night, but with no actual clog, all I was doing was splashing water around. What I think the actual problem is, the drain pipe from under the bathroom to the septic outlet needs to be augured. When the drain for our washing machine started backing up, we had a plumber come in and he augured the pipe from under the kitchen to the corner under the bathroom. It’s likely the first time that was done since the addition was built, and we got running water in the house. Which means the other length to the septic tank has probably never been cleaned, and likely has 50 years of gunk accumulated inside.
Well, we’ll find out soon enough. After I did as much as I could, one of my daughters went to use the bathroom, and it was clogged. The weird thing, though, is that the bowl keeps filling. We knew we had some sort of phantom flush. Every now and then, the tank would suddenly start refilling, even though no one had flushed, but I didn’t realize it was leaking into the bowl. We’ve got a tall, mobility friendly toilet, and the water level in the bowl has always been very low. When we replaced the innards of the tank this past summer, we were able to increase the level a bit, but not much. Frankly, I think the low water level certainly wasn’t helping.
Now, we’re actually having to bail the water out of the bowl, because it just keeps filling, ever so slowly!
Meanwhile, no amount of plunging made a difference. I even got our plumber’s snake out, but it can’t get around the U bend.
We do have toilet-safe drain cleaner, and gave that a try, but it did absolutely nothing.
So, we set up the honey pot in the bathroom to use until a plumber can get here. Much preferable to making our way through the slippery paths to a bone-chilling cold outhouse! I’ll give the plumber a call after I’m done writing this, then make sure to leave the gate open when I leave for my mother’s. Our plumber has 24/7 emergency services, but none of us were up to that. Hopefully, clearing the pipes will be enough to fix the problem, and he won’t find some other, bigger problem on top of that!
Why does this stuff always seem to happen in the winter?
One more odd thing that I’ve noticed before, but was never quite sure of until now. I heard the septic pump going off this morning. Obviously, no one flushed the toilet, and no other water was being used anywhere, because everyone was in bed, and it was about 15 minutes or more since I’d bailed water out of the toilet bowl. Which means we’ve got water leaking into the septic tank enough to trigger the pump. Granted, we’re going to need to get the tank emptied, once the snow clears enough to make it accessible again. I know the solids side of the tank must be getting pretty full. The liquid side has a float to trigger the pump, so it gets emptied regularly. It just empties more often, the fuller the solids side gets, since there’s less room for the liquid. Still, just how much water is leaking into there, that it should trigger the pump like that? This is something that’s been bugging me pretty much since we’ve moved here but, until now, I was always second guessing myself, thinking that maybe I just didn’t hear someone flushing the toilet or using a sink somewhere. My bedroom is right above where the septic pump is, so I can hear that, but I can’t hear if someone’s using water elsewhere in the house. This time, I can be 100% sure that no one was using water anywhere. Talking with my daughter about it, just a little while ago, she wondered if the phantom flush leak is just a bit slower than the leak into the bowl.
Definitely something to tell the plumber about.
Time to make that phone call, and then start heading out to my mother’s!
She’s just a big, round ball of fluff, disgusted with this wind.
I’m glad I did that burn when I did, because yesterday, in spite of the temperature being a mild -1C/30F, we were getting winds of around 45kph/28mph, and our wind chill was -17C/1F. As I write this now, we’re at -5C/23F, but the 34kph/21mph winds have it feeling like -21C/-6F.
It’s a good thing the winds are coming from the north-northeast. When I came out to feed the yard cats this morning, I found the sunroom doors wide open. I’d chased at least 4 racoons out last night, and heard others in the kibble house, before tying the doors off again, but somehow, the buggers unsecured the doors anyhow. At least they didn’t trash the sunroom too much, and we do make sure to feed the cats early enough in the evening that they will have had their fill before the trash pandas ate their food!
We had plans to meet up with the Cat Lady this weekend, but I wasn’t sure when. Now it looks like I’ll be doing errands with my mother tomorrow (Sunday), so that’s not an option. While I do need to go into town to refill a couple of water jugs, I’m seriously considering not heading out. The wind on its own is not a problem. We did have some rain yesterday which, along with the driveway and roads covered with snowmelt, means things are awfully slippery out there. Just going down the driveway while doing my morning rounds mean doing the penguin walk to avoid landing on my a$$. The highways are probably okay, but the gravel roads will be nasty. Maybe I’ll leave it for tomorrow, and do it in my mother’s town, instead.
I think today is a good day to stay indoors and catch up on my crochet.
The Re-Farmer 