The weather system has stalled over Ontario which, for us, means that the winds have actually reversed; Instead of coming in from the west and slowly cycling to the north, it’s swooping in from the east and swinging to the south. The entire system is covering the south end of three provinces (well, four, really, but it’s just barely touching one) and at least three states with snow, switching to rain to the east.
We’re just on the norther edge of the system, and seem to be getting more gaps between snowfalls, but there is still heavier snow expected.
The winds have increased, but we’re still at a very mild -4C/25F with a wind chill of -14C/7F.
I saw Junk Pile watching me through the window when I came out, but had to take a photo when I saw through the other window, that Nutmeg and Creamsicle Jr. were snuggled up under the heater bulb, I just had to take a picture! By the time I got my phone out, though, Nutmeg was at the window, checking me out. :-D
Smart kitties know where the warmth is!
I saw Butterscotch, too. I don’t know where her hiding spot it, but it’s not usually in the inner yard.
While switching out the trail cam memory cards, I remembered to get this picture.
We had started out with rain, but these icicles formed on the bumpers only on one side of the gate. There’s even icicles inside the gate post, at the ends of the hinge bolts!
The temperatures are expected to stay pretty constant, dipping only a degree or two overnight. By the end of today, they’re saying we may have a total of 20-35cm of snow. (8-14 inches) We have about 8 inches now.
The sun room, meanwhile, is staying steady at around 10C/14F. The onion seedlings, with their heater bulb below, are doing just fine in there. Of the various seeds that needed to be started this early, they’re easily the hardiest.
As I write this, the snow has stopped, but from the looks of the weather radar, we’ve got a patches of heavy snow about to hit us. Mind you, according to the radar, we should be snowing right now, so… we’ll see what happened.
Either way, I’m glad we don’t have to go anywhere, we’re warm inside, well stocked, and hunkered down. This is a good time for me to catch up on some crochet! :-)
We’re still getting a mild snowfall, off and on. My younger daughter and I made a quick trip to the post office, and the roads were pretty slushy. My husband had prescriptions refills ordered on Friday that were to be delivered today, so when we got the call that they were on the way, I made sure to unlock the gate and shovel the sidewalk. It’s a very damp, heavy snow we’re getting right now, because it’s just a few degrees below freezing.
The delivery driver had just come by and I’d quickly run out to lock the gate – sans coat, because it was that warm out there – was back inside, boots half off, when the phone rang. No one was near a phone to answer it, so it went to machine. I rushed over to pick up for whomever it was, only to discover it was a robot call.
From Environment Canada, with a snowfall warning!
So I stayed and listened to it. Since moving out here, we have never had a call from Environment Canada with a weather warning!
The expected snowfalls are now expected to be 15-20cm (6-8 inches) in most places, but some might get as much as 30cm! (12 inches) There were plenty of warnings about road conditions, visibility, and a number to call for those people who would not be able to make their retrovaccine appointments. It even included an email and twitter hashtag to report severe weather conditions. It was the exact same thing that is under my phone’s weather app alert.
We’ve had some pretty wicked storms since moving out here, and it really makes me wonder what triggered them to have the automated calls to start going out! I think this part of the alert is why. “There is still some uncertainty with the exact amounts as several waves of accumulating snow are expected through the end of Tuesday.” So… they really don’t know what this weather system is going to do – they hardly even refer to it as a “storm”. The winds are not particularly severe, and the temperatures aren’t going to be dropping much, even overnight.
Well, my husband has his medications – even his bubble packs, which he didn’t think he’d be able to get for a couple more days, the larder is full, and any of the places we need to go can wait.
Including the pharmacy. They forgot his insulin, but he’s got enough for a few more days. When he called them about the missing insulin, he made sure to add that, with the road conditions, we’re not expecting them to deliver it! It’ll be ready for pick up on Thursday. By then, the roads should be cleared, and the snow starting to melt away.
I’m still just surprised by the call! And appreciative. They would only be calling land lines, which means my mother would have gotten the call, too. Not everyone has cell phones or internet!
Well, the forecasts were actually right for a change!
Somewhat.
When I checked the forecasts last night, they were suggesting the southern areas of our province might not get any snow at all, or if they did, it would be just a bit. The system was expected to hit more of the Northern areas of the province. The city, in particular, was predicted to get maybe a couple of centimeters of snow (about an inch).
We’re more central, so either of those forecasts could have included us, but we should have gotten at least a little snow.
When I checked the weather radar this morning, the system was over three provinces, and their bordering US states.
What caught my eye in all the blues of snow was the circle of pink and purple directly over the city. Pink and purple denoting severe weather. So while the rest of us were getting an ordinary snowfall, the city – and only the city, at that time – was getting a storm!
It has since moved on, but the area of snow is still over us, and it will continue through tomorrow.
We started out with rain, yesterday evening, and it was still warm enough that the cat’s unheated water bowls did not freeze overnight.
They just got slushy with snow!
The outside cats were more than happy to be out in the weather once their kibble bowls were filled again! Even Junk Pile cat almost came close to me!
Their bowls are completely empty every morning, after nightly visits from skunks. I’ve only seen one, once, when I popped outside at night to investigate something, and found it inside the kibble house. They can get in easily enough, but they have a harder time getting out, over that board that keeps them from knocking the bowls out, with their short little legs. We catch a whiff of their presence in the night, fairly regularly. I don’t mind them too much. Sure, in the summer, they dig up holes in the lawn, but they’re eating up the grubs, and the divots can be put back. Still, cat kibble is not good for them, so we don’t refill the food bowls in the evenings anymore. It means that cats are pretty hungry by morning, though. :-(
We may be getting snow, but we are still just barely below freezing. Our expected high for today and tomorrow is -3C/27F. Today, we’re supposed to get between 6 and 12 cm of snow (about 2 1/2 to almost 5 inches), and another 2-4cm (roughly 1 – 1 1/2 inches) tomorrow.
In the sun room, however, it was nice and warm. The thermometer was at 10C/50F, though with the heat under the seedling trays, they would have been a bit warmer than that. No danger of them getting too cold in there!
The snowfall was pretty light, this morning. Changing up the memory cards on the trail cams was a bit funny. I could really tell which way the wind had been blowing! One of the trail cams had its front face covered with snow, and under that was a layer of ice that I had to scrap off the lens cover and the motion sensor. It still managed to record some videos, though! The other camera’s front was clear, but one side was coated with ice and snow. The side with the latches to open it, of course. ;-)
I’m really happy with what we’re getting right now. The temperatures are still mild. There’s no deep freeze expected, and no high winds. While there are a few patches of severe weather in the system, they’re not anywhere near us. We’re just getting the snow. Looking at the long range forecasts, the temperatures will rise just above freezing for the next while, and we’re even expected to get more snow as we go into May, which means a slow melt, and all that precious moisture is going to be absorbed slowly into the soil, rather than being washed away. This is exactly what we need!
The girls and I have been paying particular attention to where we planted all those bulbs and corms last fall. With it being so dry, we were concerned. We planted 200 grape hyacinth and another hundred crocuses. The crocuses in particular should be starting to poke through, and even blooming, while snow is still on the ground. We’ve had so little snow this past winter, though. Add in the tulips and irises the girls planted – with the tulips coming with instructions saying NOT to water them! – and it’s hard to guess how many have survived the winter, and the very dry spring we’ve had so far. Getting that polar vortex with so little insulating snow on the ground certainly wouldn’t have helped.
Well, we won’t know how they are for some time yet. If they survived the winter, this snowfall will be a huge boost for them.
I am really happy to see this snow. If things keep up like this, the fire bans might even be lifted. Some local farmers had managed to do controlled burns earlier, but the more of those that are done, the less wildfires we need to be concerned about later.
With the temperatures staying warmer, and the days getting longer, I’ve been starting to bring back my evening rounds. I was all ready to head out the door yesterday evening, when I saw three deer, running and jumping through the outer yard, from the direction of the barn!
Then they stopped and seemed hesitant.
I had a suspicion as to why.
I was right.
There were other deer!
These two were already hanging out at the feeding station.
I was able to open the inner door without startling them, so I could see them better. I could tell they saw me and were watching me, but they didn’t run off. So awesome!
The three made their way into the inner yard, but eventually left rather than joining the two at the feeding station.
There they go, all in a row! :-D
I was losing light fast, so I took the chance and went outside. They actually watched me for a bit, before running off.
As I was checking things out in the outer yard, and making my way to the back gate, I had to pause to take these photos.
I was in the path I mow to the back gate, half way between the fences for the inner and outer yards. The line of snow is what was hard packed from so many hooves, it left their mark in snow that’s taking longer to melt away.
Last winter, they seemed to prefer to jump the gate by the old garden area, where it is more open, but this winter, they definitely seemed to prefer going through the maple grove, then jumping the fence near the massive old willow.
Every time I see them making their way through the trees, or along the spruce grove, it makes me glad we were able to clear the trees out so much. It’s not only much easier and more pleasant for us to be able to go through the trees, but the deer prefer it, too!
While doing my rounds this morning, my daughter joined me as I took a closer look into the spruce grove, where we have SO much clearing to do. I had earlier identified 6 dead spruce trees that we’d like to cut down, on top of the 3 that are closer to buildings that we plan to hire someone to take down. We were able to go further into the grove and look more closely.
It’s not 9 dead trees. It’s a full dozen.
And that doesn’t include any others further into the grove, but just along the Western edge, where we need to work on cleaning things out first. It also doesn’t count the dead trees that have already fallen, and are either on the ground, or leaning on other trees, that need to be cleared away.
Looking in the area behind the garlic beds, it’s almost all little poplars, and those cherry trees that aren’t right for our climate. They bloom beautifully, but produce almost no cherries. They’re all relatively small, so I will be taking them right out. The little bendy poplars will be used to build trellises and arches, among other things. The cherries… they don’t look all that good. They have been killed off by late frosts, then regrowing, so often, none of them are particularly big, and are growing in clumps around whatever parent plant had died off in the middle. They might just end up being really nice wood to cook over.
The size of this area that has no large trees in it is pretty significant. Any spruces that used to be there have died off long ago – I expect to uncover more stumps as we clear back there. It also gets quite a bit of sunlight, so this will be a good area to plant some of the food trees and bushes we are planning on.
Once it’s all cleaned up and cleared away, I expect to see a lot more deer cutting through the spruce grove, rather than skirting around it!
As for the additional trees we identified as being dead and in need of removal, I noticed a couple of groups of three. Depending on the condition of the stumps, they might work well to use as the supports, to make a table with a bend on each side. We are wanting to create pleasant little seating areas throughout, where we can sit and enjoy the wild roses and red barked dogwood that we plan to leave as undergrowth, along with the Saskatoons we are finding (we’ll be taking out the chokecherries, though), and the other trees and bushes we intend to slowly plant in the area.
Like the mulberry tree that will be shipped late in the spring, so we’re going to need to get those dead trees out sooner, rather than later!
Plus, in other areas of the grove, we intend to transplant more spruce trees, into the spruce grove!
This whole area is going to be completely transformed over the next few years.
If all goes well, it will be a haven for both humans and deer. :-)
While the inside cats – at least one of them, anyhow – were busily trying to destroy our bunching onion seedlings, the outside cats were far more civil and adorable!
When I headed out to do their food and water, I opened up the sun room door, so Potato Beetle could come out. He was all curled up in the box nest we made for him.
The only reason he came out at all was because I refilled the outside bowls with warm water, before doing the one in the sun room. It had frozen over, but didn’t freeze solid, like the ones outside.
Once he knew there was warm water in the sun room, he was back inside!
The litter box we have for him was unused, though from the smell, he found somewhere to go! I think he (unsuccessfully) tried to use a plant pot with soil in it, as I found it knocked over. The good thing about the sun room is, we can easily clear it out and clean the concrete floor in the spring. He does know how to use a litter box; we used the sun room as a winter shelter for the cats and they all preferred to use the litter boxes we had in there, rather than go out in the snow!
By the time I finished with the deer and bird feed, Potato was back in his box nest, all curled up and ready for a nap! So I closed up the replacement door, leaving the inner door open, to allow a bit more light and warmth in.
While doing the rest of my rounds, I had plenty of company, as Butterscotch, her three boys, Nosy and Rolando Moon, all followed me around!
We had snow last night. A light, fluffy, crystalline snow. I wish I could capture on camera, just how much everything was glittering and sparkling this morning!
This is not frost. This is snow! Every surface that could hold the flakes was glittering in the sunlight. It was an amazing sight!
Almost as amazing as this… ;-)
We had an adorable gatekeeper of cuteness! :-D
Creamsicle Jr. is a shy one, so I had to zoom in to take photos while trying to get closer.
He didn’t like that too much. :-D
I really hope we are able to better socialize him – and the rest of the semi-feral kitties that won’t let us near them! – over the summer. :-)
Before I get into various things, I want to share some cute stuff with you, first!
Our collection of baskets that had been stored in the big fish tank ended up on top of the piano for now. The cats love to go up there, so I fully expected them to take advantage of the situation.
It wasn’t long before I found Tissue and Leyendecker among them!
Tissue is in three baskets at once! :-D
The largest baskets, with decorations on them, are the ones we use for our family Easter basket. There are some smaller ones in the collection that we found while cleaning up the house, including a basket that used to be my very own basket to take to church for blessing on Holy Saturday, along with the family basket, when I was a child!
Here is some more cuteness for you to enjoy…
This piece of foam is what was inside the new washing machine when we bought it. Our old mama cat, who moved out here with us, immediately adopted it as her favourite bed, and now Cabbages loves to join “grandma” for cuddles!
The cats also like to bite off pieces along the edges and spit them out.
Our living room carpet is continually covered in cat fur, foam from this thing, cardboard from their scratch pad, and the dirt they’re still managing to dig out of some of our plant pots! The cats leave trails of detritus, everywhere they go. :-D
Our old mama cat has been quick to adopt any new cats introduced to the house, and is STILL allowing several of the kittens – now almost adults – to try and nurse on her, including Cabbages. Cabbages has been taking a long time to socialize but, thankfully, she is getting along quite well with the other cats. Grandma and Keith are her favourites!
Cabbages and Keith will spend hours like this, all snuggled together and napping on my bed.
Cabbages has finally reached a point where we can pet her regularly, and she doesn’t immediately run off. She seems torn between not wanting those big, clumsy humans clomping about near her, and wanting those scritches and pets. She will even tolerate being picked up and held, if only briefly. That is significant progress!
In other things, we warmed up enough today that I finally switched out the memory cards on the trail cams. That micro SD card I put in the new camera this morning, which had been used only once and did not require formatting in the camera when I put it in the first time, needed to be formatted this morning. *sigh* Why would it work fine the first time, after I’d formatted it in the computer, but need to be formatted in the camera, the next time it was used? The other micro SD cards I’d bought at the same time had done the same thing. I had assumed it was because they were not as high end, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem, after all.
Ah, well. I’ll figure it out.
With the bitter cold we’ve had for the past few days, I was not expecting to find much on the cards. Especially from the new camera, which has been just dying with the colder temperatures.
I was surprised.
The older camera was shut down when I switched out the memory card. When it gets cold and the batteries can’t handle it anymore, it shuts itself off. When I turned it back on, the batteries were still at half power, so it was just from the cold. There were still a few files on the card, though, all from one day.
The new camera had files recorded on each day of the deep freeze! This camera displays the temperature, and it actually kept on recording with an internal temperature of -25C/-13F !! Previously, this camera would die before reaching -20C/-4F! It did shut itself down during the nights; the only night files we did get, had a warning displayed in large red letters, saying it was low power. This camera will actually turn itself back on again when the temperatures warm up. I am totally shocked – in a happy way – that it kept working through the deep freeze. I have no idea why it would stop working before, but is working now, at these temperatures. I’m not complaining, that’s for sure! I did still have to warm up the camera with my hands, so I could see the screen, but that would only be a real problem if I had to do it during the deep freeze, because of the frost bite risk. Since I don’t even bother switching out the cards in temperatures like that, it’s a moot point.
This afternoon, we warmed up to -14C/7F, which made me a lot more comfortable about heading out to help my mother with her grocery shopping. She didn’t need much, but took advantage of having access to her car and stocked up on other things. I gave her some of my extra Mingle Masks, hoping she would use one instead of struggling with the surgical mask she normally uses, but she wasn’t up to it. Still, she has them, and saw on me how to use them, so I hope she gives them a try. She will actually be able to breathe in those. She still would have to use the type she struggles with at the pharmacy, though, so she might not bother. Frustrating.
After helping my mother with her shopping, I went back to the grocery store to pick up a few things to tide us over until we can do our big shop, whenever that will be. I had to pick up some bigger stuff, like cat litter and cat food, so there wasn’t enough room in her car for her shopping, her walker, and my shopping, all at once. Which is fine by me. The final bill was a shocker, though. I didn’t get very much, but it cost almost $270. Considerably more than if I’d been able to go to the city to buy the same things.
Bird tracks in the snow, found when I came home. This is nowhere near the bird feeders, but those are sunflower seed shells on the snow. Which shows just how windy things go!
There’s a reason we try to do monthly shops in the city. We save at least several hundred dollars every month by doing that, which means we have more budget left over to buy fresh foods locally. The more we’re forced to make smaller, local shopping trips, the more gets eaten out of our budget, and the less we can get overall, either locally, or in the city.
I did splurge on one thing, though.
I bought a 240 count bag of those red plastic beer cups.
I’m on several cold climate gardening groups, which are all busily talking about starting seeds indoors right now. I’ve seen people recommend using these as pots to start seeds in. They just need to have drainage holes punched into their bottoms. While I will be starting some seeds (like onions) in Jiffy pellets, and others (like corn) in toilet paper tubes, I learned from last year, that I need something bigger to start squash in. I did transplants outdoors too soon because they had gotten too big in their starter trays, only to lose most of them to one last late frost. By starting them in something bigger, even if the weather is not cooperative and they get in the ground later, they will have enough room to keep growing in their pots.
Ideally, I would be using biodegradable pots that can be put straight into the ground, with no disruption of the roots. That’s what I will be doing with the toilet paper tubes and corn. I’ve been looking at pots like that. The Jiffy peat pots are relatively inexpensive, and come in larger count packages. I would have ordered some last night, along with the seeds and plants I got for my daughters, but they were sold out. The alternatives were “cow pots” – the same idea, but made with cow manure instead of peat. They are way too expensive, though.
So when I saw the beer cups in the store, I went for it. They are the size I need, and can be reused. With 240 of them, I have more than enough to plant everything we have that need to be started indoors, and need the extra space.
Now I just have to figure out what to put under the the drainage holes. I can think of all sorts of possibilities, but they all require buying something, and that’s just not an option right now. Even if I could find them, they are “non essential” and stores still wouldn’t be able to sell them. (Like with clothes.) Maybe I’ll find something later in the month that I’ll be allowed to buy. The first seeds need to be started the second half of March, so I have a bit of time to find, or even build, something.
One more little step of progress towards our gardening. :-)
Tomorrow, we take the van in to the garage and hopefully find out why it’s been stalling. What we find out then will determine what we do and when, in regards to getting the monthly shopping done, and picking up the new hot water tank on warranty.
Ah, that reminds me. I asked around about how this location has been about medical mask exemptions and things like shields and Mingle Masks. It turns out they’ve gone full mask nazi, even to the point of staff following people around, harassing them and kicking them out.
That is going to be a problem. At the very least, I need to go to the customer service desk with the sticker from the hot water tank, and warranty authorization number.
I did find out another location has been safe to go to. As far as I have been told, I need to go back to where the tank was purchased, but that may mean only the franchise, not the specific store. The first tank we got was from a location in town that told me they don’t do warranties, so I had to go to this other location. The one that was recommended to me is actually a bit closer; just in a town to the north of us, that we almost never go to.
I’ll have to make some phone calls.
What a hassle even the simplest things have become.
One of the first things I do in the morning, before heading outside to do my rounds, is check the weather.
This morning, at a time when I would normally be starting to head outside, it was -36C/-32.8F
Yeeeaaaaahhhhh…. No.
I waited a couple of hours before heading out, but it was still -28C/-18.4F At least there was no windchill, and the “real feel” was -25C/-13F
The wait meant I had a whole lot more cats to greet me when I came out! There were none at all, inside the cat shelter. They were all out and about.
They have quite a lot of food out, but still prefer the fresh kibble. Which they quickly abandoned, once they saw there was fresh, warm water!
One of them was eager enough to take a short cut through the snow! LOL
Once again, I skipped switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, but I did head out to the garage to double check that the vehicles were plugged in, and grab some sheets of insulation. We had used these to line the windows in the sun room last winter, when we were keeping the doors propped open so the cats could shelter in it. With the outer door fixed, and that cats having a lovely warm shelter of their own, we didn’t insulate the sun room this winter. That leaves the pieces available to use inside the fish tanks to help keep the seed trays warm.
It wasn’t a lot of extra time to do that, but even so, I could feel the cold in my lungs. Thank God I’m already a shallow breather, due to my chronic cough. In temperatures like these breathing deeply can injure the lungs.
There may have been no wind chill this morning, but as I glance at my weather app, I see we’ve almost reached our high of the day, at -24C/-18F – but the wind chill is now -30C/-20F!
Thankfully, tomorrow we should be back to more normal temperatures, and be warmer than -20C. Which is good, because tomorrow afternoon, I am heading out to help my mother with her errands, and have to do a bit of grocery shopping for ourselves, too.
It should be even warmer on Friday, when I take the van in to the garage to get checked over. I really hope he finds why it has begun to stall and have troubles when fully loaded. We were already splitting our monthly shop into a couple of trips, and if the van has problems with just a half load already, and have to make more frequent, even smaller shops, we lose all the benefits of bulk shopping. Plus, our province has kept up a lot of restrictions, loosening some but increasing others, with no change in the mask mandates. There are still a lot of places that refuse to accept medical exemptions, and going out to shop feels like going out to battle, every time. Being surrounded by faceless people is also starting to freak me out more and more. I’m even playing Pokemon Go less. The game has things you can do right from home, without having to go places, and among the thing you can do is exchange gifts with people that are on your friends list. You get to see each person’s avatar in the process, and people are putting masks on their avatars. It’s bad enough that the option is even available, but it’s like a punch to the gut, every time I see a masked avatar. Every avatar represents the person playing, and that person just turned themselves into an NPC.
It’s one thing to know, intellectually, the sort of psychological damage this sort of dehumanization causes. It’s quite another to feel it. And rather surprising, considering how little we go out anyhow. I don’t even want to imagine how wigged out I would be, if I had to be surrounded by it every day. I completely understand my friend who has self isolated for months, because being surrounded by masks triggers her PTSD!
At least I know what the cause of the discomfort is. Most people would have no idea. And why would they? All they would know is that their stress and anxiety is increasing, and there are so many things contributing to that right now. Unfortunately, that cognitive dissonance would cause all sorts of anger, even rage, towards anyone without a mask, and they wouldn’t understand why.
A bit of a rant, there, I suppose, but that lack of awareness directly affects people like myself, who can’t wear a mask. Even in places that recognize medical exemptions, it’s the other customers that become more aggressive and abusive. I have been fortunate so far. I may have been kicked out of stores that refuse to honour medical exemptions (which is illegal, but then, so are the mask mandates), but I haven’t been harassed by other customers, yet. It has, however, affected familial relationships and friendships in a negative way.
I have never enjoyed shopping to begin with. Now, it’s like walking around with the sword of Damocles hanging over my head, never knowing if it’ll drop.
We’ve had ourselves a chillier morning today! Light snow, and bitterly cold winds from the south is what greeted me this morning, when I went out to do my rounds.
Kitty loaf is not impressed.
It does look pretty, though!
Switching out the micro disk cards on the new trail cam has gotten somewhat easier. The micro disk itself has become easier to take in and out; it isn’t as “sticky” as it was at the start. As long as I have enough of a thumbnail to push the card in, to either latch of unlatch it, it’s not too bad. :-D
When I open up the camera, I switch it from On to Set Up, first. The screen turns on, and that’s when I can see if the cold is an issue. If the screen is mostly blank and barely lit up, the camera is too cold. I’ve found I can use my hands to warm it up enough that the screen will start working. Which, on days like today, can be rather hard on the hands! Thankfully, it only takes about half a minute. Then I can switch the memory card and see if there are any issues.
When I got the camera, I got 2 micro discs along with it. I just ordered the recommended ones, not really noticing that one of them was actually a pack of 2. Those are the ones I’ve been using. The problem is, when I switch cards, the camera wants me to format the new card, every time, after giving me a message that the card is “incompatible.” So all those days when I found nothing on the card, it was partly because I couldn’t see the screen and missed these messages. Once the card was formatted in the camera, it worked fine. It didn’t matter if I’d already formatted it on my computer.
I shouldn’t have to do that every morning.
Last night, I dug up the extra card, formatted it on my computer, and used that, this morning.
The camera had no problem with it. No messages, and no need to format the card in the camera!
The cheaper cards were the problem.
On mentioning this to my husband, he dug around and gave me one of his extra Micro SD cards to use. It’s a 64 gig card. WAY more than needed. The other cards were 32 gigs, and even at highest resolution while set to take both photo and video, I could probably leave the card for a week and still have room to spare. The main thing is that the card won’t need to be formatted every morning. It’s even the same brand as the new one I put in this morning, so it should be fine. I’ll know for sure when I switch cards tomorrow morning.
It still doesn’t solve the problem of the camera not really working when the temperatures dip. Once it gets cold enough, it simply stops recording. It does start up again on its own, when the temperatures rise. This is frustrating, because in all other respects, I really love this new camera! But all the features I love about it are useless if the camera simply stops working when it’s cold. At least we have the second camera that keeps working. With that one, the cold is only an issue for the batteries, not the camera itself. As long as it can get any juice out of the batteries, it will keep chugging along.
Ah, the things we have to put up with, because of one person we can’t trust.
A few days ago, my husband got a phone call. There were two things odd about this. First, the call went to his cell phone. Being in a dead zone, any time a cell phone rings is downright startling. Second, the call turned out to be from Fed Ex. They had a package for him, and needed our physical address.
As near as we can figure, this was something my husband ordered back in November. After all this time, he’s actually already got a refund on it. He had been expecting it in the mail, too. Fed Ex doesn’t do box numbers!
So he called the number back using the land line and, after being on hold for about 45 minutes, finally got through to someone. After giving our physical address, he gave them precise directions on how to find us. The person he talked to even looked us up on Google maps and did eventually figure out where we were. Just inputting our physical address hadn’t worked! He then let them know about the locked gate, so they said they would send an email in advance, letting us know the package was on the way from the city.
We got that email, telling us delivery would be made yesterday. So when I went out to do my rounds, I unlocked the gate and left it open.
The last time we did that for the washing machine repairman, the gate was open only half an hour, and our vandal showed up and tried to break it again. So we were pretty uncomfortable having that gate open, but we also didn’t want the package to just be left in the snow in the driveway, either. We kept a close eye on the security camera’s live feed!
Then my husband let me know that we could close the gate up again. He just received an email. Apparently, FedEx couldn’t find us, so they weren’t going to deliver the package. They wanted us to call about getting it.
Which means, they would expect us to drive to wherever their warehouse is in the city, to pick up a package they’ve been paid to deliver to us.
I don’t think my husband plans to call back. There is no way we’re going to make the trip. UPS found us, no problem. FedEx can figure it out, too. Even when we were living in the city, we’ve had issues with them. They would actually leave notices on our door, saying no one answered when they knocked, but we had been home and no one knocked.
I was just happy to be able to close and lock the gate. No sign of our vandal, either!
Later in the afternoon, I did take advantage of the slightly warmer day to go get the mail and pick up some more deer feed and bird seed. We’d run out of both, that morning.
One of the things I’ve noticed when heading outside to do my rounds, is that our door has been making an increasingly horrible noise. The inner doors in the “new” part of the house are still the originals, and they are wooden, hollow core doors, not insulated steel doors, as are available today. These doors are heavier than interior doors, so I do think they have some sort of insulation inside them, but I really don’t know.
The “front” door, facing the spruce grove, almost never gets used, so aside from needing to put insulation between it and the storm door in the winter, to keep frost from building up at the bottom, inside the house, it’s fine. The door we actually use all the time is not doing so well! The house shifts with the seasons, so it’s not really a surprise that the door is scrapping the door jam now, and we can hear the wood of the door splitting and cracking at the bottom. So I’ve taken to lifting the door as I close it, to reduce the noise.
How much the door lifts was quite a surprise, so when I had the chance, I took a closer look.
*sigh*
The door is coming off its hinges.
This morning, I snagged my husband to help me tighten the hinges. This is the top one.
It’s hard to see in the picture, but the screw heads are even slightly bent!
Of course, with the top hinge being so loose, the middle one is, too.
Thankfully, the bottom one is still solid, but that won’t last long if these ones get any worse.
There is a built in closest near the door, so it can’t be opened all the way. My husband held it open as much as he could for me to be able to fit the screwdriver in place. Normally, I would just open the storm door, but between the cold and the cats, that wasn’t an option. While my husband lifted the door and held it in place, I tightened the screws.
As I did so, I could tell this wasn’t going to work. The screws were barely catching on anything. Still, I hoped to at least get it a bit tighter than before.
*sigh*
As soon as my husband released the door, not only did it drop, but some of the wood split above the top hinge.
I reached up with my phone to get this picture.
In the photos, you can see there are cracks in the wood of the door frame, too.
We knew the front door needed to be replaced, and were already thinking we would replace the entire frame, too. I just didn’t think we’d need to do it because the door is falling right off the hinges!
Theoretically, we can install hinges in different locations, and that would tide us over until we can replace the door and frame completely. Given how loose the door is, we might not have a choice. Even if we had the money for a door kit now, we wouldn’t want to install it in the winter. Because you just KNOW something will do wrong and it’ll take forever to do! :-D My brother recently replaced one of the doors of his house, and he used a door kit, with two doors and the frame, as we would be doing here. Everything was standard sized, so it should have been a simple switch. It wasn’t, and it took him days to get it installed properly! I don’t think our doors are standard sized, so I don’t expect anything to do smoothly.
This is something were I would much rather hire someone to install it, rather than doing it ourselves. It would cost more, of course, but would be worth every penny.
*sigh*
Another thing on the list that just became a higher priority.
The temperatures have gone up quite a bit today, and the outside cats are quite appreciating it!
I was very happy to see Rosencrantz this morning! I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.
Butterscotch also made an appearance this morning. I didn’t see her yesterday.
Her babies were just loving the new snow, running around a chasing each other in it. :-)
Butterscotch, however, would not come anywhere near me this morning, so I wasn’t able to check her wound at all. She seemed to be moving around fine, though, so that’s a good sign.
Nostildamus made up for her lack of interest, wanting all sorts of pets and attention!
He has such soft fur.
Today was a day when everything looked soft and fluffy. Even the trees.
The warmer temperatures brought with them the softest, fluffiest of snow. We got about 2 inches of it by this morning; two inches of mostly air!
The Potato Beetle is not amused. The kittens might be enjoying the snow of their first winter, but the adult cats seem much more ticked off about the whole thing! :-D
We’re supposed to drop to more normal, chilly temperatures after today, so I think I will take advantage of the day and make a trip into town to pick up a few things we are starting to running low on.
Just glancing at my weather icon on my toolbar as I write this, and see that we have reached 0C! (32F) The wind chill is at -6C/21F, which is still quite balmy! A wonderful day to get outside. :-)
I just had to pause for a picture when I saw these guys, watching me when I came outside this morning.
These guys know well enough to stay out of the wind, even if they can see fresh food and water is about to be dispensed! :-D
Except this little Spice Boy, who has a thing for drinking out of the water jug. He prefers this over drinking from a bowl! :-D
Also, those bulk sized Orville Redenbacher popcorn containers are the handiest things. The plastic is really strong, and they are a very useful size. We’ve got some with the bottoms cut off and the lids in place, that I use to scoop and carry critter feed. I used to use a metal pitcher for their water, but this holds a lot more water, and the handle design is easier to carry with one hand and not slosh while opening and closing doors. Used to put them in recycling, but now I keep them because they’re so useful!
As I was finishing up my rounds, Butterscotch made an appearance, and even let me carry her!
Well, sort of carry her. :-D
She still moves around too much for me to get a good look at her wound, but from what I can glimpse, it’s still looking good. Understandably, she seems uncomfortable sitting in the snow, as much from the lack of fur around it as for the wound itself!
We’ve got another relatively mild day today, though winds are certainly making it chillier. We were supposed to get snow this afternoon, but a storm passed through to the south of us, last night. We got light snow and winds, in our area. Now, it’s just winds. I’m good with that. We need to make a trip to the pharmacy this afternoon, which is when the weather was originally predicted to hit us. We’ll just have to watch out for ice, high winds and deer, and not the edges of a snow storm, too! :-D
I am soooo appreciating our mild winter. The last 3 since we moved here got so brutally cold. We’ll be getting colder next week, according to the long range forecasts, but it’s more of a normal cold than what we had in previous years.
I have no doubt the wild critters are appreciating it, too! Much better chances of survival. With Butterscotch having a little of kittens so late in the season, it is a relief for them and their safety, too.
The Re-Farmer 