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.
Okay, so I’m really a week early for this, but I decided to start more seeds, anyhow!
It was also an excuse to finally get my video making software up and running on the new computer. That was far more complicated than it should have been, but once it was all set up, everything went well.
Plus, PBC makes a cameo appearance.
This time, I started the three varieties of short season bell peppers left over from last year; Early Sunsation, Dragonfly and Early Summer. When it comes time to transplanting them outdoors, we need to try a completely different location. Definitely well away from those trees along the north side of the low raised garden beds! Hopefully, by starting them indoors this early, as well as planting them in a better location, we will actually get ripe peppers to try. With the peppers we started last month, this will make for 6 varieties, only one of which was able to ripen outdoors last year. None of the seeds are new.
I ended up starting 4 varieties of tomatoes. We were intending to only plant a couple varieties, originally; one paste tomato variety and one cherry tomato variety for fresh eating. Then we got some free seeds I wanted to try, too. When going through the tomato seeds we had, I decided to grow the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes again. I used the new seed starting trays for the tomatoes, which have only 12 cells, so I’m going for more variety over quantity of plants. I know the cherry tomatoes should be prolific (if they do well this year), but the free Forme de Coeur we got are also supposed to be quite prolific. I planted only 2 seeds per cell. If we end up with only a few plants of each variety, all together should be adequate to our needs. If we do end up with a high germination rate, I’ll might thin by transplanting, but we’ll see when the time comes.
The San Marzano tomatoes went into my remaining new style of tray I got this year, with the larger, deeper cells. There weren’t a lot of seeds in the package, though, and I used them all up. I filled the cells only half way for now, and will top them up as the seedlings get bigger. With this, if we do have a high enough germination rate that they’ll need thinning, I will definitely thin by transplanting. As it is, I only had enough seeds to plant a pair of seeds in two rows, and the last row got only one seed each. It’s entirely possible that thinning won’t even be an issue.
Last of all, I started some Butterfly Flower, which is an orange variety of milkweed. That one had plenty of seeds, so I might also try direct sowing in the spring, too. I had a small tray with Jiffy Pellets left over from last year, so I used that. The seeds are pretty big, compared to all the others I started today, and each pellet got only one seed each. That’s still a dozen seeds, so not bad. Since these are perennials, we will need to be selective on where we transplant these.
Starting these seeds meant a bit of rearranging needed to happen. The seeds starting in the Red Solo cups were still in the big aquarium greenhouse, and that was going to be needed for the large tray of tomatoes.
Zero oregano seeds germinated, so I took those cups out completely. With the Purple Beauty bell peppers, one cup had all 4 seeds germinate, while the other had none, so I transplanted two of them into the empty cup. The German Winter Thyme doesn’t seem to be growing much bigger. I’m not sure what to make of that. The bin with these went into the mini greenhouse in front of the window. The two trays with the LED grow lights on them went into the mini greenhouse as well, and are now plugged into their USB cables. For now, I can still use the remaining three lights to supplement the tray with the eggplants and hot peppers.
The trays with the tomatoes and peppers are set up above the heat vent. Hopefully, that will be enough, because we’ve only got one heat mat, and that’s now being used with the San Marzano tomatoes. The milkweed is in the big aquarium greenhouse, too, but off on the side. These shouldn’t need the extra heat, anyhow, but the warmth from the lights themselves should be adequate for them.
Now I’m really going to be getting antsy. We are at 11 weeks before last frost and with these seeds started, the seeds I have left don’t need to be started until 2-4 weeks before our last frost date. Unless I decide to start some gourds, but even they all are recommended for starting at 2-4 weeks. That means having to wait until the start of May, at the earliest!
Well, before then, I’m sure some things will need to be potted up or something, so I should still be able to get my gardening fix! 😂😂
I got some sad news from the Cat Lady last night. The “problem cat” that they took on from the city shelter is going to have to be put down. For her to make this decision, you know the situation has to be exceptionally bad. She has had vets recommend euthanasia for cats many times, and she’s hung in there and saved so many cats, including several from us that are now living with them permanently. She was even wondering why the city shelter hadn’t already done it, long ago.
In the middle of all this difficulty, she was still thinking about us and her promise to help out.
The original plan had been for both tripods to go to the city shelter and their special needs area, while Ghosty would be going to the shelter that specializes in Siamese cats. However, because our adoptees are going from a loving home where they are well cared for, she feels it would be too stressful for them to go to a shelter, no matter how much they promise that tripods get adopted very quickly. If they were kittens, that would be a different issue, but if she wouldn’t feel right putting one of her own cats in there, she wasn’t comfortable putting any of ours in there, either.
I will trust her on that assessment!
She’s going to give herself some time to decompress from the situation with this other cat, and will then take Ginger from us on the weekend. Ghosty is going to wait until the other shelter has an open space, rather than go to the Cat Lady until they do. Toni is not being bullied like Ginger is, so she is not an urgent adoption. She was even willing to take Leyendecker instead of Ginger, since she’s quite familiar with dealing with cats with urinary issues, but Leyendecker is not the cat being bullied, and the chances of getting Leyendecker adopted out is much lower. His urinary issues are related to stress, and he’s had no issues at all for quite a while – just increasing the amount of wet cat food they all get seems to have helped with that, too.
So we get to keep Ginger a little bit longer. This time, we’ll be meeting in the town nearest us, rather than in the nearer city, half way between our homes.
I had intended to pick up more litter pellets after meeting with the Cat Lady, since I could only fit one bag in the cart along with the kibble. When my daughter wanted to go into town to pick up a few last things for her sister’s birthday, I suggested we go to the nearer city so I could get the litter pellets, too. That worked for her, so we headed out late this morning and ran our errands.
When we got home, I took advantage of our weather to do a job that should have been done awhile ago. We have not been able to do burns often enough, usually due to high winds, so our burnable garbage has been building up. Meanwhile, we’re getting to where my daughter wants to start burning the used litter, rather than adding it to the pile behind the outhouse, to compost. On top of that, we have not been able to cremate the cats we’ve lost over the winter. Today we happened to not only be pleasantly warm, at 2C/36F, but there was virtually no wind at all. It was time to finally get the job done.
The burn barrel is falling apart and needs to be replaced, so we’ve been using a burn ring, instead. That’s getting too full of ashes. So after digging a path through the snow to the burn ring, I also dug out a larger area nearby to basically do a bonfire. We’ve still got all those old rotten pallets we cleaned up from where the wood pile used to be, so I set one of those down on top of the snow where I’d cleared a space, then prepared a space in the middle for our lost ones. Their remains were kept under cover in the burn ring, so I moved then over, then continued to build up a pyre over their remains.
Between our paper garbage and the old pallets, I was able to built quite a fire – and wow, did it get hot! I couldn’t get close to it to tend the fire for more than a few seconds before having to back off to at least 10ft away.
I took advantage of this and cleaned out almost all the old rotten pallets, setting aside the wettest ones where they could dry in the sun, for the next time we need a fire. That junk pile looks so much better now! We’d intended to take the old pallets to the dump, along with all the other oversize garbage in there, but we were never able to hire someone to haul it all away for us. I would have preferred not burning them, since they are so full of nails, but we’ll just have to take extra care in cleaning up the ashes. Right now, I’m glad we didn’t get them hauled away, since they made for an appropriately hot and clean fire to take care of our lost ones.
Not something I ever expected to need to do, when we moved out here!
The good thing about doing something like this, this time of year, is that once things burned down enough, I could leave it to smolder. The fire melted enough snow around it to create quite a puddle under it, and there’s nothing but more snow for a substantial distance in all directions.
So there’s a job that finally got done. Hopefully, not one that will need to be done again for quite some time. This past year had an insane amount of cat and kitten losses, both indoors and out. Something the Cat Lady tells us has been happening all over our province, so it wasn’t just with us.
As for the inside cats, pretty soon we’ll be down one and, hopefully, we’ll be able to keep finding forever homes for more soon. It’s been really all over the place in getting adoptions done, but at least they are happening! I am so thankful we connected with the Cat Lady. She’s been awesome for us!
I took this several hours ago and, while it’s not as dense now, it’s still foggy out there.
We’re just barely above freezing right now, but even earlier things were starting to melt again.
I got to test out the new rubber boots!
This is part of the path crosses the moat that surrounds our garage every spring. I was more than happy to break up the ice and walk in water, because it was incredibly slippery in all the paths! The boots don’t have much grip.
They did allow me to check the lake that’s forming in front of the outhouse, and finally get to the sign cam to switch memory cards. I cut through the spruce grove to avoid the deepest snow, then went around the edges of the tree and fence lines. The snow in the open isn’t excessively deep, but why fight through it, if I can avoid it?
I did remember to change the clocks on the trail cams, though – just a little bit late! I actually forgot about daylight savings time almost entirely. We have only two clocks that need to be manually changed, and one of those is on the oven. I suppose we could do the microwave, too, but after getting a series of power outages a while back, we just didn’t bother setting the time on it again, at all. I find myself at least a day late in switching the trail cams, every daylight savings.
As for today, I’m looking forward to a quiet day of indoor tasks, and no driving around with errands. Especially with so much melting on top of ice out there! We’re only supposed to hit a high of 2C/36F today. Right now, we’re at 0C/32F, with a “feels like” of 3C/37F. So we’ll see what we really get. Oh! I just checked one of my weather apps, and the forecast has changed again. Now they’re saying we’re supposed to reach 4C/39F today.
One thing we do have with this weather is far fewer cats running around! I think I counted about a dozen or so this morning and, every now and then, I’ll see one come running from somewhere in the outer yard. They are most definitely exploring further afield, possibly to neighboring farms.
They also haven’t been eating as much kibble as things get warmer, which is going to be nicer on the budget, but all the containers were empty this morning. I think we got visited by racoons again. I’m pretty sure I heard some screeching outside my window last night, but I didn’t see any in the sun room when I checked the critter cam. I imagine we’re going to start seeing the skunks again in the near future.
The inside cats, meanwhile, are being driven insane by the occasional lady bug or fly that has come out of dormancy and started bouncing off the ceiling or windows.
Ladybugs are remarkably loud when they do that!
So is the crashing and banging when the cats launch themselves after them, sending anything in their paths flying! *sigh*
Speaking of cats, I’ve been keeping in touch with the Cat Lady. The “problem cat” she took in at the request of a shelter is not doing well. Hissing and spitting and terrifying the other cats in the room. It’s only been a couple of days, though. About the only positive thing she could tell me is that the shelter didn’t have to remove all the cat’s teeth. She’s still a gummy cat, but there are a few teeth left. The poor thing must be so traumatized – and that’s on top of having been removed from an abusive home in the first place.
Needless to say, I’m not going to be pushing about the Cat Lady taking our three. Especially since I think they would be staying with her for a short while, first. Thankfully, she does have an entire separate, heated building on their new property for some of the rescues, but others have to be in the house for special care.
She and her family are so amazing. They put up with so much – and she puts up with the two calicos from our place that are still nasty to her, even though they are great with everyone else! In all her years working with rescues, she’s never encountered anything quite like that before!
Hopefully, the new addition will learn to feel safe and trust again, but it’s likely going to be a hard road after having gone through so much.
Yesterday, we ended up reaching a high of 7C/45F, and it was still above freezing, well past midnight. Today’s high was supposed to be 3C/37F but, as I write this, at almost 3pm, we’re at 5C/41F, with a “feels like” of 9C/48F!
The cats aren’t the only creatures loving the warmth!
When I came outside to feed them, I found a couple of odd things. The first was clumps of snow all over the well cap. I clear that, because some of the outside cats like to eat there, away from the other cats. There’s a pile of snow beside it from shoveling paths clear, and something had been digging into the pile, kicking chunks of snow all over, and creating tunnels into the pile.
That wasn’t the only thing dug up.
This is the roof of the cat house. Not only is the snow dug up, pieces of shingles have been torn of!
I’d say, racoons.
The roof of that cat house makes sense, since we normally drop food on there. Quite a few of the cats prefer to eat on the roof instead of at ground level.
As for the pile of snow, we’ve had snowfalls that covered kibble that was on the well cap. When I shoveled it clear, those bits of kibble ended up on the snow pile. The racoons must have been able to smell them, and were digging to find the food!
After feeding the cats and continuing my rounds, I remembered to grab a shovel and clear some snow so the two sides of the gate can be opened wider. The paths through the snow in certain areas were full of frozen pools of water, from yesterday’s melt. It was already warm enough for things to start melting again, so it was very slippery. We haven’t been able to make it to the dump lately, with the storms, and I was planning to do it today. Since we can’t drive into the yard, though, we’d have to carry the garbage to the garage. I was needing to use the snow shovel as a walking stick to keep from slipping. There was no way we could make multiple trips to the garage while carrying bags, safely.
The dump trip will have to wait.
I did end up having to go into town again today, though. One of the places I needed to go is a mini department store, so I made a point of looking at their rubber boots. The last time I got rubber boots, I had a hard time finding any that could fit over my calves. I ended up getting a pair that fit my feet, then cut the boots off above the ankles. One of the boots from that pair now has a bit crack across the top of the foot, so they are now useless. With the troubles I had before, I didn’t have much hope in finding a pair that fit.
Much to my surprise, not only did I find boots that fit over my calves (even if a bit on the tight side), they were wide enough at the feet that, instead of my usual men’s size 9’s, I was able to get size 8’s! I haven’t been able to wear size 8 shoes in decades! On top of that, the price was actually reasonable – just under $35.
When I got home and my younger daughter helped me put things away, I got her to try them on, since she has the same trouble finding shoes and boots that fit that I do. Happily, they fit her, too! There was even room for a pair of insoles she happened to have spares of.
Now we just need to see if they will fit my older daughter, too. She has an even harder time finding shoes that fit right than I do!
You know, I never thought I’d see the day where I would be so excited over being able to find a pair of rubber boots that fit. 😂😂
It’s going to make my morning rounds much more pleasant, though! Not to mention just going to the compost pile. That path is completely flooded out. I didn’t bother checking, but that would mean the low area in the path to the back door of the garage, and the outhouse, would be a lake right now.
We’ve got a few more days above freezing ahead of us, but the long range forecast now says we’ll have a high of only -8C/18F by Sunday, and that the highs will stay below freezing for at least the next week after that. Considering how often the forecasts change, though, I’m not holding much stock to that right now. We shall see what actually happens!
For now, we – and the outside cats – are going to enjoy the warmth and the melting snow!
Rolando Moon was loving the hard packed snow on the sides of the driveway, while I was doing my morning rounds. In fact, all the cats were running around, enjoying the bright morning sunshine. I counted 26 this morning. The most I’ve seen for a while, now!
At the time I did my morning rounds, it was about -5C/23F, but felt much warmer. As I write this, shortly after 1pm, we’re at 2C/36F, and expected to reach a high of 5C/41F! Several degrees warmer than the forecast has been, for the past few days.
Even yesterday, with the forecast shifting and predicting a high of 2C/36F, we actually hit 4C/39F, and things were melting all over!
This morning, I took the time to widen a section of the driveway, to make it easier to turn into the garage when coming home. Coming back to the house I noticed the old market tent set up by the fire pit was partially collapsed. It’s broken on one side, so it doesn’t take much. Unfortunately, we haven’t dug any paths to the fire pit, so I was slogging through snow half way to my knees to get to it.
Getting the roof of the market tent, which is set up over the old picnic table and the folding table we made with parts and pieces we found in the barn and basement, clear was more difficult that I expected. Because of how warm it was yesterday, melted snow started pooling in the canvas roof, even leaking through and leaving icicles hanging on the inside. We have an old hoe with rounded edges that is safe to scrape the snow off without damaging the canvas. The handle is a steel pipe welded onto the hoe, so we use it in the fire pit, rather than the garden, so it was handy. I got as much snow off the tent roof as I could, then ducked underneath to try and knock it off from below, and lift the roof supports. One section turned out to be really, really heavy for some reason. That’s when I realized there was a big pool of water that had frozen overnight! I was able to scrape more snow off and break up the ice from the outside, until I could finally lift things from the inside.
We have been using the picnic table to cure onions and potatoes, setting them on old window screens I found in the barn and sheds. Short scrap boards were used to elevate the screen for more air circulation. All of that is still stored on the picnic table. The boards are just long enough that I could set them up on the picnic table and the folding table to prop up the tent roof supports. Unless they get knocked over by a cat or something (the cats do love the shelter the tent and tables provide!), they should keep the roof from collapsing again. The long range forecasts have changed again and now say that, a week from now, we will have highs below freezing again and, depending on which app I look at, we might get a bit more snow, too.
I got a message from the Cat Lady last night. The “problem cat” that the city shelter had asked her to take on is going to her today. The cat had all its teeth pulled and is now well enough for her to try and rehabilitate. Which means she couldn’t meet me to get our three today. We should be able to connect mid week, but that will depend on how things go with her new acquisition.
Since we were going to meet her half way, at the smaller city, I was going to take advantage of the trip to pick up a few things. Now that we were not going to be meeting her today, after all, my younger daughter and I went to town this morning, instead. Since I was in town anyhow, one of my stops was at the pharmacy. My husband had ordered prescription refills for delivery on Wednesday, so I thought I might be able to pick those up while there. They weren’t ready yet, so those will wait, but the other reason I was there was to get our printouts for our taxes, now that my husband’s second T4A is in. They were able to print mine out, but then needed permission them to be able to give me my husband’s printout. They gave me the form for him to fill out, and we’ll give it to the delivery guy when he comes. They will make sure my husband’s printouts are included in the bag with his refills.
I found out something interesting while doing this. Just about everyone that works there knows me well, by now, so when I come in, they know my husband’s name, and that I have a hyphenated name. Today, there was a new person helping me. I first asked about the refills, and gave her my husband’s name for her to look up. She confirmed having the right file using our postal address. After she confirmed the prescription wasn’t filled yet (since it didn’t need to be delivered for another 2 days), I said it could wait and mentioned the printouts.
In looking up my file, she didn’t know I had a different name. She started confirming my postal address, but the box number was one we hadn’t used since the last time we lived in this province, some 25 years ago! A pharmacist that knows our file well came by and helped her find the right file under my hyphenated name. While doing all this, I commented that the box number she had read out was one we used to have, many years ago. She noticed that the health care number was the same.
They had two files on me!
My old file had been using my non-hyphenated married name – something I would use when people didn’t have enough space to put in my full name. A common problem I had for many years! At some point, programmers changed software to fit longer names, because I no longer have that problem.
As I was leaving, they were in the process of merging my old and new accounts, so they will have just one account for me now.
To think, if it hadn’t been for a new person who didn’t know me as well, it wouldn’t have been discovered that there was a second file for me!
I may not have been able to get my husband’s refills early, nor get his tax printouts, but we at least got that discovered and fixed!
Today was such a nice day to be out and running errands. In the time it took me to write the above, we’ve already warmed up to 4C/39F – with a “feels like” of 7C/45F! That’s downright tropical for this time of year. 😄 Meanwhile, the thermometer in the sun room is reading 15C/59F!! There are cats played out in sun spots all over the room. 😄
On days like today, I can hardly wait for the snow to be gone, and finally getting outside and back to work! We’ve still got probably another month or two before we can do that, though!
Gotta laugh at Patience in the back, caught mid yawn!
I got to pet the tuxedo on the left while it was eating. He seemed so surprised when I did. Not “oh, no, the human is touching me!” surprised. More like “I’m not supposed to like the human touching me!” surprised. 😄
I counted only 17 outside cats this morning. Most in the sun room. They are using the cat house for shelter, but clearly the heat bulb in there is not working. I tried looking in the window, and I can see the heat shield is handing down, but that’s about it. I am assuming they unplugged it somehow, because I can’t see the red light that’s on the timer device. The window is so dirty and dark on the inside, I can’t see the timer or the outlet it’s plugged into at all. The good thing is, even without the heat bulb going, it’s warm enough that their body heat alone will warm it up in there. Opening up the roof to check isn’t an option right now. I like to leave the snow on the roof for extra insulation, plus we haven’t dug the path around it since the most recent snowfalls, so we can only access one corner right now. Even the back, where the counterweight is set up, would need to be dug out more. Otherwise, it can’t be fully opened.
When it comes time to build a new cat house, I definitely want to change up how to access the inside. The roof is just too heavy to be opened the way it is now. As it’s getting older and more fragile, we have to have two people to open it, so it won’t twist and crack. The counterweight helps, but not enough.
My brother built it so it’s sitting on a skid that allowed him to move it around. That skid is rotting and falling apart now, so it wouldn’t be of any use to try and move it again. In the future, I want to built a cat house that’s on legs maybe 6 inches off the ground, and then we can use things like bricks or whatever, to 1) protect the wood of the legs from the moist soil and 2) level it, since our yard is wildly uneven.
Since the cats like to use the space under the various shelters, I will also want to put some sort of skirting around probably three sides, maybe 3 1/2 sides, to shelter them from the winds. With how well having a sheet of rigid insulation under the kibble house has worked out so well for them, I’d want to do something similar under any other shelters we build, too. It would be good to include a racoon proof space to store their kibble and supplies. We need to free up space in the old kitchen, where it’s all currently stored. We used to keep it in the sun room, but the racoons kept getting at it.
I also want to have one whole wall, or at least a large part of one wall, to be of Lexan, and have that side facing south. That will allow for passive solar heating (we would need to be able to vent that heat out in the summer, so it doesn’t get too hot!), while also allowing us to see what’s going on inside. The problem is, a single sheet that’s .093 Inch x 18 Inch x 24 Inch costs almost $90! That’s at Home Depot in the city. There are cheaper brands, like Optix, where a sheet that’s .080 Inch x 18 Inch x 24 Inch costs a little under $35. Lexan is a much higher quality, but… well, it’s for a cat house, so we don’t necessarily want to go all out on it!
One of these days, when we have a budget for it, I want to go to the Restore in the city. There’s no way to know what’s going to be in stock at any given time, but they often have all sorts of building materials available for much lower prices. Not just for building cat houses, of course! We need materials for the sheds and other structures we need to build. For the cordwood garden shed we want to build, for example, I want to make sure it’s on a foundation that can hold the weight of the walls. Otherwise, it’ll just sink into the soil. I follow the local Restore on Facebook and have seen all sorts of bricks and pavers and the like some available at times. There’s also a salvage yard in the city that sells items salvaged by a demolitions company – the company my late brother used to work for – and they’ve got huge piles of bricks and stone that would work. For a trip there, though, I’d want to go with my brother and his trailer. This is not stuff I would be able to load into the back of our truck!
It’s all gone as I write this, but heading out this morning was a glittering, sparkling winter wonderland!
All the trees were frosted like this. There’s no way the camera in my phone could pick up how it was all sparkling in the sunshine!
I also had a nice surprise when I got to our gate. Yesterday, I saw that someone had opened up one side of the driveway more for us, at the plow ridge. This morning, the other side was done! This time, the motion sensor on the trail cam was triggered, and I could confirm it was the same neighbour who would suddenly clear our driveway last year. Last year, we had enough accumulated snow that, once it was deeper than the bottom of our gate, we left the gate open, so he just went in and cleared our driveway for us. With how much milder this winter has been, and seeing our vandal do things like stalk along the road when the vehicles we’d sold for parts were being collected, we didn’t dare leave the gate open. Otherwise, I know he would have widened the whole driveway for us. As it is, he did what we could, just because he could!
Having such great neighbours does make up a lot for having to take extra precautions because of our vandal.
The good thing is, our new truck can handle a plow attachment. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a used one, because even the cheap, generic new kits start at around $1300, before taxes, with some costing more than $5000!
Something else to try and figure out how to squeeze out of our budget!
The yard cats seem to really like the freshly cleared paths!
They are much more active these days, and I’m seeing far fewer of them when I head out.
On the downside, this being prime baby making season, is increased fighting among the males. This morning, I found things knocked about in the sun room. As I cleaned up, I was finding tufts of fur all over. When I untied the doors, I found fresh blood on the threshold. I’m not seeing new injuries on any cats, but Sad Face has more scratches healing on his nose.
We did make it out yesterday to pick up some takeout. The driveway is a bit tight in places, but we had no issues getting in and out. This morning, though, I saw that someone had widened the end of our driveway, on the side we normally turn towards. I’m pretty sure I know who it was, but the piles of snow are so high that whoever it was did not trigger the motion sensor on the gate cam. Which is fine since it still gets triggered where I need it to monitor.
I shared a couple of photos of our plow ridge to a FB group for our municipality. Many others had the same problem, which they never had before this year. One person lost days of work because their road wasn’t plowed, then when it did get plowed, their driveway was blocked by the plow ridge, and they still couldn’t get out! It seems we are not the only ones with limited means to clear our own driveways.
I’m glad we got it done, though. I heard from the Cat Lady this morning, and we are on to bring three cats to her on Monday. We will meet her at our usual parking lot to do the deal. 😉 I just need to get a time to meet, depending on her schedule. I might widen a couple of spots in the driveway between now and then.
I did clear the paths to the compost heap, back door of the garage, and outhouse this morning. It was a beautiful day for it. I’m actually quite surprised by how much I am not in pain today.
As much as I’m tempted to get out and do more digging, I need to make myself take a break. I’m a terrible one for pushing myself too far, then paying for it for days. I keep forgetting how broken this old body is! Especially on beautiful days like today.
So today will be a day of enforced rest, even though I did already do more digging! 😆
Last night’s storm turned out to be bigger than predicted. The 10-15cm/4-6in snowfall we were told to expect quickly changed to 10-20cm/4-8in The local highways group I’m on was getting constant updates from people describing terrible road conditions and many people in ditches, while advising others to not go out at all, if they didn’t have too. Highways were being closed all over the south half of our province, too.
The winds weren’t as bad, at least. Which meant that when I started digging out paths around the house, I didn’t have to break through several inches of hard packed snow at the top, first.
I did the main paths, clearing the main entry and front steps, the sun room doors, and around the cat shelters. The sidewalk from the main doors to the gate in the chain link fence, then on to the garage, got cleared wide enough for my husband’s walker to fit through. Once at the garage, I cleared enough to access and open the doors to where little Spewie is stored.
And that’s it. I’m done.
I traded chores with my daughter, instead. I did the litters and, as I write this, she’s bundling up to go out and clear the driveway. At least the temperatures are pretty mild. We’re at -8C/18F right now, and expected to warm up another degree for our high. We’ll warm up very slightly over the next couple of days, then are expected to make the jump to highs above freezing by Sunday. Which means all the paths we clear now will melt clear first.
I did see a plow on the main road last night, but I didn’t see if it had gone down our road or not. I sure hope it did!
One reason we wanted to make sure and clear the driveway today was so that we could head out to meet the Cat Lady with three adoptees tomorrow. Yesterday evening, though, I got a message from her. The “problem cat” that she agreed to take in return for them making space for our tripods, isn’t going to her quite yet. The cat turns out to have dental issues and will need all its teeth pulled! So she’s going to have two gummy cats soon. It’s a good thing the shelter caught it and is taking care of that. When they had to do it on the cat they adopted from us, it ended up costing $1800.
So she won’t be getting the cat right away, which means they should have space for our tripods some time next week. Ghosty is going to a different shelter, but she will collect all three of them at once.
Which turns out to be providential, considering the conditions right now! We’ll have our driveway clear, at least.
Based on the long range forecasts, winter has made its last gasp.
We’ll see if that holds out! It’s not unusual for us to have a blizzard around our anniversary, in the first week of April, but we are still being affected by the strong El Niño, so we might escape it this year.
I sure hope so. I want to see green growing things outside again!
The Re-Farmer 