Yes, it was warmer than yesterday. As I write this, we’re still at -9C/16F. Wind chill is -22C/-8, though.
It was a good day to break out the crochet. I haven’t been doing that a lot, as yard tends to catch on the rough spots on my skin and get yanked right off the hook. My daughter, however, got me a skein of blanket yarn, yesterday.
Turned out, blanket yarn doesn’t catch on my fingers!
So I whipped up a hat, here modelled by Ferdinand, my beat up display head.
The ear flaps can be folded up for extra thickness. Which is something I need, because wind in my ears causes ear aches very quickly.
I even got to test it out while doing my evening rounds.
It was snowing again, by then – it’s been snowing lightly, off and on, all day, even though the weather apps were saying we had no snow, but to expect some tonight. Uh huh.
Adam came out for food today, on her favorite perch to eat, on the cat house roof. It took several attempts, but she did allow me to finally skritch her neck and ears. She’s more friendly when she has kittens around. Once they were weaned, she got standoffish again. *sigh*
On of the things I had on my to-do list today was to call Visa. My first credit card that I got to re-establish my credit rating, so we could finance the truck, is expiring at the end of this month. Weeks ago, when using my phone’s bank app, I started seeing a notice saying that, if I have my new card, I could activate it right there.
Except, I didn’t have my new card.
What we did have was a postal strike.
I still don’t have my new card, so I called up Visa. He looked it up and the new card had been sent out in the middle of September. Three months ago.
The post office isn’t on strike anymore, but I have no reason to believe my replacement card will come in before the current one expires.
I had two options. One was to simply wait until the end of the month and, if it hadn’t come in by then, call them back. The other was to list my card as lost, and he could send me a new card, with a new number, immediately, and expedite it. It would arrive within 3 or 4 business days.
In the end, that was the option I chose. He got me a new card set up and it’ll be sent out tomorrow. He even waived the fee for expediting it. It was all done so quickly, I probably spent more time going through the automated options and waiting before I got to talk to a human.
It does mean my current card is cancelled and no longer useable, since it’s now considered “lost”, but that’s okay. The new one should arrive before I need to use it for anything. Oh, I just remembered… that’s what the pharmacy charges our prescriptions to, when we have refills delivered. I don’t know if my husband has anything coming in that isn’t fully covered by insurance right now. I have to call them anyhow. I’m hoping to be able to get more than 30 days of our prescriptions before Christmas, so that we won’t need to get refills, pick ups or deliveries through the harshest winter months. They may need to contact our doctors to get updated prescriptions to fill 3 months worth. There might be some issues with one of my husband’s meds, and one of my daughter’s, as these are “controlled substances” and we’re not allowed to refill them until within 3 days of running out completely.
If all goes well, I won’t have to drive anywhere until Friday, when I’m potentially heading to my mother’s to do her laundry and Christmas housekeeping.
On a completely different now, looking ahead to the spring, I’ve already asked my brother if we could work out a day that I could borrow him, one of his tractors and some chain. We have so many fallen dead spruce trees in the spruce grove, with many of them stuck on other trees. They are a fire hazard, of course, but I would also like to clear them out so that we can eventually transplant more spruces into the spruce grove. We’re also talking about cutting down the big spruce closer to the house that finally died a couple of years after we moved out here. The risk with that one is that it’ll fall on the house. I did make sure to debark it at the base, so no ants will get at it. A lot of the fallen spruces fell because their bases were weakened by carpenter ants. Then there’s the tree in front of the kitchen, with that one branch stretching over the roof that we can’t get down on our own that we talked about.
So that’s something that will hopefully get done next year. My brother needs to work on one of his tractors to get it going first, though; they are all rather vintage and need some TLC to be useable.
Life is going to be so different with my brother and SIL being able to come out here more often, and with all his equipment here. They’re looking to set up an office in the trailer home they moved out here, so he could work “from home”, then work on stuff around the property in the evenings during the week, rather than trying to rush to get things done on a weekend. I look forward to helping him out and learning from him! No living person knows and understands this place more than he does.
The first two images above are from a poplar branch. I don’t think I ever noticed before that they get catkins like pussy willows do! So we have signs of spring, even as winter is trying to hang on as long as possible!
The last photo is the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. As I was out there, it was about -1C/30F. In both the covered bed and the portable greenhouse, the thermometers were reading about 0C/32F Not much difference – even in the portable greenhouse, after adding the water filled garbage can as a heat sink. I don’t think the water has in there long enough to get completely warmed up, yet.
On the schedule for today was to head to my mother’s to take her to her doctor’s appointment in the early afternoon. I still had plenty of time, as I was sitting down with my breakfast after doing my morning rounds.
Then the phone rang.
It was home care.
No one was available to do my mother’s morning meds. She’s scheduled to get them done, along with extra time to help her get dressed, if she needs it, empty her commode or even heat something up for her breakfast, at 8:55
It was almost 8:30 when I got the call.
*sigh*
So I quickly called my mom to let her know that I would be heading over as soon as I finished breakfast. My mother kept trying to keep me on the phone as she complained about my having to come out for this and I kept having to cut her off and repeat that I needed to eat and run, and we could talk when I got there. After the third or fourth time, she finally let me go! 😄
When the home care aids do her med assist, they have a folder that’s kept in her lock box where they sign off for the day’s visit and make extra notes, if needed. So when I do the med assist instead, I write up the time and date, saying that I did her meds, and include any other notes that might be necessary. So I knew what time I got there to give her her meds. It was exactly 9:15 by her clock, so only about 20 minutes late.
What I noticed as I was getting her meds out was a bubble in her pack that should have been empty, but wasn’t. Her previous Friday morning pills were still there. So I asked her about it.
She told me that she had taken her meds herself, from one of the extra bubble packs on her fridge, that morning.
!!!!
I was sure I’d pushed them far enough back that she couldn’t reach them! I don’t know how she got them down!
I told her, that was NOT a good thing to do. Apparently, the home care aid agreed, because my mom told me she put the rest of the packs into the lock box. Between the bubble packs, their folder, the blood work requisition forms, and other items in there, having an entire month’s worth of packs in there is tight, even with a lock box as large as this one. That’s why I hadn’t put them all in there myself, when I brought her refills home.
*sigh*
After giving her her meds, I did a few other little things for her, like emptying the commode and taking care of her garbage. My brother had recently visited her and brought a few grocery items she’s always running out of, but when we spoke on the phone last night, I told her to see if she needed anything else and to make a list. She did need a few things, and we still had plenty of time, so we went over the list and then I did her grocery shopping for her.
After that was done, we still had time to visit.
If you could call it that.
She spent a whole lot of time criticizing me for not being dressed “presentable” enough (while I was there, I accidentally tore my jeans), and for having messy hair (my hair was braided and I had hat head), and I should have short hair like she does. In the past, these are criticisms that would have caused me to have all sorts of issues, but I am well past that point in my life now. I call her out on this stuff, now. She doesn’t really get it. She feels completely entitled to say stuff like to about and to, anyone and everyone. Even complete strangers! Then starts going on about how people who aren’t “presentable” are uncivilized, etc.
She totally doesn’t get the double standard and hypocrisy she’s displaying!
Then she brought up the Easter baskets; I’d picked up a paska at the grocery store for her own basket. She remembered that we do Easter baskets, too, and bless them ourselves. She suggested that I bring our basket to her place on the Saturday before Easter, then she and I could go across the street to her church to have them blessed together.
I told her, the last time I brought our Easter basket to be blessed with her, she gave me a hard time about having a bad basket.
Oh, she said. That’s because it was so huge. Would you like me to give you an Easter basket?
I told her, we have all kinds of baskets of all sizes.
She told me I should just bring a small one. Just a little one…
I told her, our basket is the right size for our family.
Now, part of the reason for the size of basket we use is that we spread everything out so nothing is completely buried, rather than jamming everything on top of everything else. We also do things like have our ham on a small plate, have oil (we’ll be having truffle infused olive oil this year) and vinegar in little jars, salt in one of the many pinch pots I collect, a bowl with olives, another with butter, etc. The containers take up a fair bit of space. Plus, of course, we like to lay it out to make a pretty display. So there is actually not a particularly huge amount in the basket. But, it’s the size of the basket that bothers my mother, and people will think bad things if they see such a big basket getting blessed in church…
Never mind that I’ve seen people bring in even bigger baskets than any of ours to be blessed!
Anyhow, when she kept going on about how we should have a small basket like hers, I told her, THAT is why we don’t bring the basket in for blessing with her. She then started saying that maybe I could have a less hard heart, just for her…
…
I pointed out, she is the one that has the hard heart with this! She totally does not understand that she is the biggest reason we don’t go to church right now. We’ve tried going to some of the local churches, including the RC Church I grew up going to, and I was saddened to see how … wordly… they had become. My mother’s church is the only one that seems to remain true, so even though I’m Orthodox Lutheran now, the RC church by her place is the one church I would be going to.
Just not with my mother. I did try to, and she made it quite clear that she did not think I was good enough. I don’t put up with that.
I so miss the church we went to before moving out here!
But I digress!
My mother ended up wanting us to leave even earlier than I’d planned. That did give me time to stop at a gas station, and at a post office in the town my mother’s appointment was in (she believes the staff at her local post office steals her mail. Especially her mail to Poland). We still got there an hour early.
I did have some issues with my mother trying to drive from the passenger seat! Like telling me which way I could go to leave a parking spot and not understanding why I wasn’t driving, when I hadn’t even finished putting on my seatbelt yet. The direction she was telling me I should drive would have had me popping a curb and driving over concrete. Or insisting I undo her seatbelt for her, while I was backing up into the loading zone at her place, so I could have the space to help her out of the truck. It’s been a long time since she’s done stuff like this.
As for the appointment, it did go well, overall. She did dive into something completely new – though she says it’s been an issue for at least a year (???) – before we finally got to talking about her hospital stay and the results of her last two blood tests to monitor her kidney function.
Her kidneys are fine.
My mother was written up for some X-rays, which we could do right after the appointment, and some blood work, which required fasting, so that will have to wait. Since we’ll be doing her next kidney monitoring bloodwork in the first week of May, it can actually wait until then and she can do both in one trip.
While all this was going on, I got a message from my husband. The tax preparer had called and our files were ready to pick up. So, once I got my mother home and her new lab requisition form tucked into the lock box with the monthly ones, I had to dash off. From my mother’s place, it was about a 450 minute drive to get to the tax preparer’s office in the town North of us. After signing what I had to sign and paying for the job, I had to grab the form my husband needed to sign, drive home, get him to sign it, and drive back again! We could actually have brought it back another day, but I wanted to just get it done.
On the plus side, by the time I got home, the snow had stopped (when we were driving to my mother’s appointment, we drove into much heavier snow) and was even all melted away. Which is fine. A little more moisture is not a bad thing. We’re not getting anything close to the spring flooding we’ve had in the past. The old basement floor is completely dry, and the sump pump hasn’t gone off even once. Which means we could actually do with more moisture! It’s getting into fire season.
As I was driving home with the form for my husband to sign, I could see smoke to the west of our place. I figured someone was doing a controlled burn, though it was a windy day for it.
When I was driving home later on, on the last few miles of gravel road, I found myself behind a fire truck with its lights flashing. Maybe half a mile from our turn off, I saw more flashing lights behind me, and pulled over for the second fire truck to go by. Both continued on past our turn off. I could no longer see smoke, but somewhere near by is a fire big enough to require at least two trucks! (There could have been more that went by before I was there to see them.) There’s nothing on the live fire maps, though, so it isn’t a forest or wild fire.
Something to be aware of, with everything drying up so quickly.
Anyhow.
Today ended up having a lot more going on than expected. For now, I’ve got some cat carriers to prep and in the morning, we need to try and snag 3 pregnant females for the vet.
It’s still snowing a bit as I write this. According to the weather radar, we are pretty much in the middle of the system that’s passing over us, but I’m just barely seeing snowflakes fluttering around at the moment. We are still under a snowfall warming, and they are now saying to expect a total of 15-25cm/6-10 inches of snowfall.
Unfortunately, the wind direction was blowing snow right into the kibble house, and the space between the kibble house, the cat house and the water bowl shelter was deep with snow.
On the plus side, there is no longer a big puddle of water on the bottom of the catio! I haven’t returned the food bowl into there, though, and have been leaving kibble on the replacement hammock we put in to replace the damaged one. I can reach that with my scoop of kibble without having to untie the door.
As you can see in the second photo of the above slide show, the cats are quite enjoying the catio!
In the last photo, taken after I shoveled around the shelters and cleared some paths, you can see how much snow accumulated on the shelter roofs. I didn’t go all out on the shoveling, though. We’re going to be warming up again and, even when the temperature is just a degree or two below freezing, things will start to melt.
The yard cats were certainly appreciating the cleared paths around their shelters – and the shelters themselves.
They also seem to really appreciate that I left those box nests under the shrine for them to use. Since one of the kibble bowls under there has disappeared, I started to put kibble inside the box nests as well as the one kibble bowl that’s left. If nothing else, it keeps the snow off the kibble! The cats seem to like eating out of them – and sitting on top of the boxes, too. These cat been built to be used inside the isolation shelter, they seem to be quite useful in other places, too!
There was no way to get them all in a photo, but I counted 13 cats inside the isolation shelter! Including Syndol, lounging on the hammock which, I’m happy to say, is no longer being constantly knocked loose from its hooks. Simply adding a cord joining the two hooks closest to the ramp to the second level seems to be enough to keep it from happening.
I didn’t even notice what The Grink was doing in the second picture above, until now. She’s got her face right up at that heat bulb!! (Yes, it is confirmed: The Grink is a lady.) I’m glad the new clamp lamp has a guard around the bulb, but she’s so tiny, she could easily push her face past it. I don’t think she will, but it’s a possibility.
Brussel seems to have picked up on my new routine for her. At first, when I came out to do the kibble and water, she would jump out of her nest and eat outside. I would wait until she was back with her babies, then use the long handled back scratcher to deliver wet cat food into the cat cave. Since she would be nursing her babies, I tried to drop it close to her face, so she could eat and nurse at the same time.
Lately, she hasn’t bother leaving the cat cave when I come out with the kibble. She growls at me when I take her food and water bowl out of the cage in the evening, then put it back, refilled, in the morning, but she doesn’t leave. She also grows when I deliver the wet cat food next to her, but she now immediately starts eating, without waiting for me to leave. This is encouraging, since one of my concerns is that she will take her kittens out completely, and who knows when – or if – we’d see them again. The mamas don’t bring their babies to the house until they’re ready for weaning and, by then, it’s a lot harder to socialize them.
I’m going to be on the lookout for another small cat cave like the one we brought over for Brussel. If we can fit another one in the cube where she originally went into labour, perhaps one of the other more feral mamas that went into heat really early will have her litter in it, instead of somewhere in the outer yard. We do have another cat cave in the house, but it’s far too big to fit into the cube. Plus, that one is in pretty constant use by the inside cats!
Looking ahead in the long term forecast, it seems this will be the last big snowfall for our area, and April is looking to have daytime highs above freezing consistently. In fact, we are supposed to start getting daytimes highs of 13C/55F and up by the middle of the month.
Of course, forecasts that far ahead are never a sure thing. What we’ll really be starting to look at as the season progresses is the overnight lows. Once the overnight lows are consistently 6C/43F or higher, the soil should be warm enough for cool weather crops. With my winter sowing, that means taking the mulch off the beds so the soil can warm up, and give the seeds we planted in the fall a chance to germinate. Those overnight temperatures, though, are unlikely to hit until the second half of May and into June.
With the current 10 day forecast, the snow we got should melt fairly slowly, which will be good for the garden beds. So far, it looks like we won’t be getting any serious spring flooding. Of course, that could change very quickly, if we find ourselves with an April blizzard. We shall see!
For now, I’m happy with the snow we got. We didn’t have a lot of snow over the winter, so this extra moisture will be good for the farmers’ fields, as well as our gardens.
As much as I appreciate that we are slowly warming up and getting some really nice days, the weather whiplash of spring seems almost like an insult. 😄
With things warm enough to be melting all over, today’s high of -7C/19F (which we are already at) with a wind chill of -21C/-6F feels so much colder. A few weeks ago, these temperatures felt like spring!
While doing my morning rounds today, little Magda decided to follow me around. She kept getting under my feet, so I picked her up. She doesn’t like to be carried and ended up on my shoulders – which she didn’t like, either! – but she was cold and shivering, and actually allowed me to tuck her into my jacket.
There’s a weather system blowing from West to East, almost straight across the country, bringing snow and high winds. The snow is supposed to start hitting us withing the next half hour or so, and continue for several hours. Tonight’s low is supposed to drop to -22C/-8F, which means the winds will probably make it feel colder than -30C/-22F
This see-sawing of temperatures means our usual explosion of pot holes on the roads over the next few weeks! While we’re just getting a bit of snow today, it’s not unusual to have at least one big blizzard in March or April.
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -7C/19F again, with a warmer overnight low. I’ll be helping my mother with grocery shopping tomorrow, then do some of our own errands as well. After that, we’ll be getting a few days above freezing, then dropping down again, for more weather whiplash!
Winter and spring will be battling out for a few more weeks, yet!
Fluffy, as you can see, is staying well away from me. No chance of checking her surgical site. Even when I came back later with wet cat food, she would not go anywhere near the food bowl (there’s just one again, as the other was knocked down to the lower level) while I was around. The Grink is more comfortable being nearby, but wouldn’t let me touch him, either.
At least one of them has yet to figure out the litter box in the lower level. 😬
With the ramp door closed, there is no need for the wind shelter box around it, but I did find another use for it. There are some cats that are too shy to come to the food bowls in the kibble house, shelf shelter or sun room, but will eat kibble left on the concrete well cap. Others just prefer to eat kibble there. I used to keep a scrap piece of rigid insulation on the cap, to keep little toe beans protected from the cold concrete, but no large enough pieces seem to have survived to this winter. So I generally just try to keep it clear of snow.
The wind shelter box makes that easier. It keeps the snow off the kibble, the scaredy cats get to have some shelter while they eat, and if they get startled, they have a “back door” to run through.
After the critters got their food and warm water, I went to switch out the memory cards in the trail cams. I found the gate cam like this.
On checking the files, later, I found the motion sensor still worked, as there were several files where all I could see was the ice on the camera lens cover! It was surprisingly thick, too, and took some doing to clear. Mostly, it was using my hands to melt the ice off, because it could not be scraped off without a tool, and I didn’t want to do that and risk scratching anything.
The plan for today was to break out little Spewie later on, to clear the driveway. The snow system should be past us completely by now, but we’re also expecting high winds, later on. The main thing would be to clear the plow ridge at the end of the driveway, and we’ll need to use a shovel for that. Little Spewie was not made for jobs like that, and there’s bound to be gravel and rocks mixed in, anyhow.
This morning, though, I took the time to shovel out all the paths before heading back inside, including enough in front of the garage that the side doors can be opened to access Spewie and the extension cord collection. While clearing the paths from the shelters by the house, to the shrine and the catio, I made sure to put more snow around three sides of the catio for extra insulation. I don’t plan to go any higher than where the floating shelves and hammocks are. This way, the cats can sit and look through the plastic wrapped walls, and the sunlight can get in.
I am not taking the snow off the roof. The clear roof would let more light in and add to the passive solar heat, but the snow acts as an insulator that will help keep the heat in when it gets dark. I’m thinking the passive solar heat from the plastic wrapped walls should be enough. It will never get particularly warm in there, but at least it will be better than outside! I’d put snow around the front, too, but the propped open door needs to be kept clear, in case we need to get inside. Like when the cats (or other critters?) push the food bowl too far away from the door. Normally, I can just reach in with the scoop of kibble, and not disturb any cats too much (the more feral ones usually run off before I even reach the catio). Sometimes, though, it’s way too far, or even knocked over. I’ve had to go all the way into the catio at times, to get the food bowl and put it back in reach.
I may be short, but I’m not that short!
I was reminded today, just how much I enjoy shoveling snow! I kept telling myself to not push it, but it was just too much fun. At least the snow was still light and fluffy, and not packed down by the wind. Still, when I finally went back inside, I made sure to take some pain killers, right away! Not my prescription ones, as I want to save those for before bed. I need to talk to my new doctor about that. Painkillers that can be taken only once a day is great for helping me get some sleep, which is when I need them most, but not of much use during the day.
Aside from working on the driveway, we’re going to have to set up the laundry hose out the front door again today. From the gurgles I hear when we’re using the kitchen sink, I don’t think that section of pipe is clear enough to handle the the amount of water that would drain from the washing machine yet. It drains very quickly, and I don’t want to take the chance of it back flooding. I’m more than content to keep running the hose through the storm door until spring or so.
We’re still using the bacteria and enzyme pipe maintenance products every week, plus flushing with straight hot water and detergent every few days, as the plumber recommended, but there still seems to be a bottleneck in there. When the ice in the roof vent was cleared, we might have gotten things like leaves and other debris. Leaves would have a tendency to stick to the inside of the pipes and be harder to flush away with the water.
There’s only so much that the drain auger can clear stuff like that away. Ideally, we’d use something equivalent to a bottle brush that could be pushed through the length of the pipe that could scour the insides. We do actually have something like that, which is great for clearing smaller pipes, but isn’t quite large enough, or long enough, for this one.
It’s not a big deal. We just have to make sure to keep the wash loads going, with no breaks to wait for the dryer in between, and regularly pop outside to make sure the hose is drained, so it doesn’t freeze closed. We’ve even stopped doing cold water washes only, so that there is at least warm water running through to keep it ice free.
So that will get set up next. I don’t know if I’ll be up to doing the driveway with little Spewie as well. We’ll see. Normally, my daughter would do it, but she’s been quite sick for the past few days, and in even more pain than I am.
In other things, I’ll be sure to talk to my mother again today – assuming the hospital staff have left the phone in her room from yesterday. My sister has been contacting more distant family members about my mother, as she’s got their contact information (to be honest, I hadn’t even thought of it; I only thought of my siblings!). While we were chatting last night, she let me know that our vandal is back in a different hospital with an infection related to his recent surgery. I’d like to wish him well; it would be good to reconcile with him, but he’s so far gone, my sister can’t even mention my name around him, because he just loses it. I honestly can’t be angry with him about it; he’s clearly dealing with psychiatric issues. I do have a problem with the people around him that are enabling him and not getting him the help he needs. That, however, is not my problem. I have my mother to be concerned about.
I do wonder if I should be calling the eye clinic in the city. Her appointment is for near the end of February, and they don’t plan to do the injections this time. The will just check to make sure nothing has gotten worse. We won’t know for several more days, whether my mother will be released from hospital and sent home, or if they will be able to get her into assisted living or long term care – which is what she would prefer – instead. She is quite enjoying her time in the hospital, and things like having her meals and meds brought to her, and having all these doctors and nurses tending to her. She says the food is very good, too. She’s not on any dietary restrictions; just fluid restrictions, so she’d be getting “normal” meals. It would be so much better for her to NOT go home from the hospital! We shall see what happens over the next few days. I think, once we have a better idea of where she will be, then I’ll call the clinic and update them.
Well, I’m procrastinating now. Time to get that hose set up and start some laundry!
As I write this, we’re at -9C/16F, but the wind chill is at -25C/-13F
Around the house, we are sheltered from the wind direction for a change, so we’re not getting quite that wind chill effect in our immediate area. Which I am happy for, since we have to keep the isolation shelter closed, and there was only two cats in it.
I’d given them their wet cat food this morning, and Fluffy stayed well away from me. Even when I was about go go inside the house, saw her sharing the food bowl with The Grink and paused to get my phone out to take a picture, she saw me stop and moved away.
Clearly, she has not forgiven us for her trip to the vet! There’s no way I can check her incision, but at least we can tell how she’s feeling by her behaviour, at least somewhat.
The Grink, meanwhile, seems quite happy to stay right where he is! We see them cuddling together in the cat bed pretty regularly now.
At least I think he’s a dude. My daughters tell me he is, but I haven’t been able to see, myself, with all that long fur. He does not allow us near him. I had to zoom in to get this photo. He looks so much like Fluffy! She doesn’t have any white fur, other than inside her ears, so we can at least use that to tell them apart. This fluffer is one of this past summer’s kittens, so there’s almost a year between them. Fluffy is pretty small for her age, though, so there isn’t a lot of size difference between them.
The snow in our area started last night. It started coming down pretty hard at one point, but mostly it was light and constant, so there’s a few inches accumulated already. We’ve got a break in the snow right now, but it’s supposed to start up again tonight and keep snowing until about noon, with only a couple of hours break at about 7am. From what I’m hearing and seeing on the highway conditions group, the roads were getting pretty snow covered. The road between us and town was pretty bad, which is typical when the winds are blowing this way. The east-west roads are almost always the worst.
Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have to break out Spewie and do the driveway.
Needless to say, I did NOT head to town to see my mother. I did phone to ask how she was doing. I’d called shortly after shift change, though, so the nurse had only been there for 15 minutes. She knew my mother was doing well, and was feeling better, but that’s about it.
Then she asked if I wanted to talk to her on the phone. They could bring a phone to her room and she could transfer me over.
Yes, please!
It was good to be able to talk to her directly. Not that she could tell me much; she doesn’t understand much of what they are saying or doing in regards to her treatment, but she could tell me how she felt and we could just chat for a bit. My cousin had visited her today, so she was happy about that.
Little by little, I’ve been remembering different places to call that needed to know about my mother. Home care. Meals on Wheels. Today, I remembered to call her pharmacy. They would normally have delivered her bubble packs for the month, yesterday. Now that they know she is in the hospital, they can suspend her prescriptions until either we let them know she’s home, or a doctor calls to tell them her prescriptions are cancelled with the pharmacy, which they would do if she goes into long term care or assisted living.
I think that’s the last place that needs to know about my mother! Her church would already know, since the guy that took her to her appointment is from the church and has been bringing her communion since she hasn’t been physically up to going to church lately, and the church next to the hospital knows, as the priest has already come to give her communion since she was admitted.
It will probably be a couple of days before I can go and visit her again. While the roads might be clear earlier, it’ll take us some time to get our own driveway clear. In particular, I need to get the end of the driveway done. With what’s already there, once the plows go by, we probably would get stuck trying to get through the plow ridge. It’s going to start getting cold again, though. Today and tomorrow are going to be relatively warm, and then we’re getting highs of -19C/-2F, with overnight lows of -27C/-17F
I worry about the outside cats, but they know how to take care of themselves. The cats that used to hang out in the isolation shelter now hang out in the cat house and the sun room. Usually in big cuddle puddles.
We did get a big stinky kitty visit the sun room last night. I didn’t try to chase it out, after watching it on the camera for a while. The big heated water bowl that stopped working is set to the side, near where the heat lamp is. It’s full of ice, but on less frigid days, the heat lamp is enough for it to start to melt, and the cats seem to really like the melted ice water.
So goes the skunk, apparently. On the camera, I could see it sitting on top of the ice, doing something. It looked almost as if it were chewing on the ice, where a gap forms between the ice and the wall of the bowl. When I headed out this morning, I made sure to look. I could see a deeper spot in the ice, with smooth sides. The skunk had been licking the ice enough to create a hole!
By the middle of the month, I’m hoping we’ll have a new critter cam in the sun room. I’ve just ordered a small security type camera. It can be rotated 360° remotely, while the one in there now is stationary. The cats regularly knock it out of position. The main thing, though, is that it does not require a subscription to record and save files. We can add a micro SD card to record locally. As long as it can connect to our WiFi, that should be good. The last camera I tried simply would not connect to our WiFi, and we could never figure out why. If this one works out, I might try to get a lightbulb camera again, for the basement, to monitor the septic pump.
If I had the funds, I’d be like my brother with their old place. He had cameras everywhere! The buyers actually paid extra to keep his camera system. 😄 In the summer, I expect he will start adding more cameras around the property, since he moved his farm equipment here.
I have no problem with more cameras around!
But that will wait for when things are much warmer, and the snow is all gone.
It’s only February, but I am so done with winter already!
Things kept warming up slowly overnight and, as I write this, we’ve been at our high of the day (-4C/25F) for some time, and will stay there for several more hours. After a slight dip in temperature this morning, we’re going to keep warming up again overnight. Tomorrow’s high keeps changing, but the range has been from -1C/30F to 1C/34F
I took advantage of this. Once my rounds were done, I stayed out and got little Spewie out of the garage. This was also going to give me a chance to use the new heavy duty, 100′ outdoor extension cord my husband picked up for me. This one is designed to withstand both extreme cold and extreme hot temperatures – so whether we’re at -30C/-22F or 30C/86F, it will be able to handle it!
I just double checked. On the cold side, it’s rated to stay flexible at -50C/-58F. The heat resistant jacket is rated to 70C/158F
So we’re good! 😄😄
My plan had been to do the driveway and paths in the outer yard. I started with the paths, including a new path to the pump shack. Since I was already on that side of the garage and had enough cord for the job, I did the paths around the cat shelters, to the compost pile, outhouse, back of the garage, and the litter pellet compost pile behind the outhouse.
I’m standing next to the kibble house to take the above picture. I widened the space at the bottom of the photo, to make room for the truck to back up towards the sun room. When I backed into the yard to load up the garbage the other day, I kept hitting a pile of snow along the cat path I was standing in for the photo.
There is now enough room to drive in, turn around, back up – and still have room to open doors and walk around the truck.
By the time I finished here, I was done for the day. I just cleared one last section of path, plus right in front of the garage, before putting everything away. The driveway can be done tomorrow! Plus a path to the barn. We can get through the area, if needed, but by clearing it now, when things warm up, the remaining snow will melt away faster.
Added bonus was coming inside to a hot lunch and a giant mug of freshly brewed tea. 💖🍵🍚
It felt so good to be outside and getting work done! I just love it!
The outside kitties were not impressed, though. At least, not the more feral ones. Spewie is pretty quiet, being a tiny electric snow blower, but between the noise and the snow being hurled into the air (and sometimes blown back into my face when we got a gust!) was just too much for them.
There is a down side to getting all that cleared, though.
I made sure not to push myself but, once inside, it didn’t take long for my entire body to stiffen up and start hurting a lot. I ended up taking a couple of my prescription painkillers. Which I was hoping to avoid, since I’ve been saving those to take before bed. The prescription is to take one or two capsules, once a day. By taking them now, it means I can’t take them before bed. Last night, thought I was doing pretty good and took only one before bed, and it just didn’t cut it. Even taking two, it eases most of the pain, but not my hips, so I’m still rotating like a rotisserie chicken at the best of times. Taking one helped with most of my joints, but my hips were hurting enough that they kept waking me up.
I’ll have to talk to my new doctor about that, the next time I see her.
Meanwhile, I’m prescription pain-killered up for now, and will need to watch myself for the rest of the day, so I can do the driveway tomorrow. I can still take acetaminophen for the night, as they are the same class of painkillers. I just can’t take anything like ibuprofen while I’m using this prescription painkiller.
Getting all that space in the yard cleared is worth it for me, though. It just felt so good to get some manual labour done!
Yeah, the thermometer shows it’s gotten warmer, but we’ve got another bit of a storm happening. The winds are quite as severe as a few days ago, but with more snow.
When I headed out this morning, we were at -26C/-15F, but the wind chill was at -39C/-38F I spent as little time outside as possible! Basically, just give the outside cats non-frozen food (their food trays are filled with frozen kibble) and warm water, and that’s it. I did manage to get a few pictures, including a show of this gorgeous girl.
I want to pet her. I want to brush the mats out of her fur.
I want her to not be pregnant.
I assume she is, as the boys are leaving her alone, now, though when I checked out the bathroom window last night, I saw some shenanigans happening with Midnight and a female I couldn’t make out under him; definitely not a big fluff ball like Brussel. I wasn’t going to even try interrupting them, since that would just scare cats outside into the cold.
As I write this, we have warmed up to -19C/2F with a wind chill of -32C/-25F This time, the wind is coming up from the south at 34km/h21m/h, though we certainly have higher gusts that I can see blowing past my window.
We are supposed to reach a high of -17C/1F I don’t know what time of day they use to determine when the high happens, though, as the temperatures are supposed to continue warming slightly, to reach -15C/5F by about 10pm tonight, and stay there until about 2am, when we’re supposed to cool down. The “high” of tomorrow is supposed to be -19C/2F, but that’s supposed to be at about 5am, and things are supposed to keep cooling down for the rest of the day.
Thursday, at least, we’re supposed to have a high of -15C/5F. I got mixed up and was thinking that’s when we’re taking a couple of cats in for a spay and a neuter, but that’s on the 30th. This Thursday is a follow up doctor’s appointment for my daughter. Her appointment isn’t until 3pm, though, and we’re supposed to get snow again, starting Thursday evening and continuing all through Friday. Friday, however, is supposed to have a high of -3C/27F!! Then, on the 28th, we’re supposed to actually go above freezing!
If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, things should stay pretty mild, with only one or two days below -20C/-4F in February.
I certainly home so.
This polar vortex may have some other negative effects that we won’t know about until spring. While our Liberty apple tree is planted in a sheltered spot, and protected someone with an anti-deer wrap, it’s still a zone 4 fruit tree. These temperatures may have killed it.
Our winter sowing experiment may also be affected. While the sown garden beds did get a thick layer of mulch, they would also have benefited from a thicker layer of snow to insulate them. We just don’t have a lot of snow this year (which is NOT a complaint!). Some seeds, like the onion seeds, I’m sure will survive just fine. Others, I’m not so sure!
Well, we’ll see in the spring. Once things warm up and melt away enough, I’ll remove the mulches. Then we’ll see whether I’m making a mistake by not buying more seeds this year.
Oh, who am I kidding. I am sure there are some seeds out there I will end up buying!
With the cold, the snow and the winds, I am cheering myself up by thinking garden thoughts!
Shortly before 8am, we were at -27C/-17F with a wind chill of -39C/-38F
As I write this, it’s past 10:30am. We are still at -27C/-17F and the wind chill is -41C/-42F
It was probably about 8:30-9am when I headed outside to feed the yard cats and do a quick check around the house. I was definitely not going to do my regular rounds.
It doesn’t look like we lost any trees this time, though I did find some downed branches. Not anything to pick up now, but to be cleaned up in the spring.
With the cold, I had my hood up over my toque. To keep it from being blown off my head, I had to use the Velcro closure that goes across the mouth. I normally don’t use it, because anything over my mouth causes me to struggle to breathe, so I try to tuck it under my chin. It was cold enough that I had to sort of go back and forth; tuck my chin behind it to warm up, then out so I could breathe.
My glasses, of course, immediately fogged up, so I was also trying to see over the frames.
As I was going around the north side of the house, I have my usual paths to follow, which made it easier, except… well… I couldn’t really see much.
The next thing I knew, I’d tripped and was on the ground.
Thankfully, I was not injured, but this was a real problem. My knees are shot. Getting back up again is very difficult, even the few times I’ve tripped and fallen in the summer. Compounding the problem is the snow. There isn’t a lot of it, and it’s only half-packed. So I’d manage to get myself onto one knee (trying one, then the other, to figure out which one I could actually use) brace my hand onto the ground to push myself up, and the snow would give out. Next thing I know, my hand is lower than my knee, and I’ve pitched myself back into the snow again.
I actually fell three time, twice while trying to get up.
Of course, I cried out as I fell, but no one inside could hear me. After much struggling, I did manage to get up, but for a while, there was a real concern that I wouldn’t be able to, without help. Meanwhile, my phone was in my pants pocket instead of my jacket pocket, where I couldn’t get at it while lying on the ground.
In these temperatures, this was a very dangerous situation.
For the next while, as we continue to have these extreme temperatures, one of the girls will be coming with me when I do my rounds, just to be on the safe side. We’ve got two more days of this before it starts to slowly warm up again.
Meanwhile, I’m fortunate in that I just seemed to have slightly pulled some muscles. My neck and left side of my body is a bit stiff.
The girls have been plying me with tea and sustenance, so I don’t have to move around too much. I’d already taken painkillers before I’d gone outside, but I might need to take some more. I don’t think I need the prescription painkillers, though. Those are “take as needed”, but only once a day, and I save them for before bed, so I can get some pain-free sleep.
This could have gotten really bad. Thank God it didn’t!
The Re-Farmer
addendum: I just got a call from my brother. He’s on the way over right now, to switch the pipes on the septic pump! In this weather! Apparently, next weekend doesn’t work for him, so he’s coming out now. Hopefully, the roads will be clear!
As I write this, we are at -23C/-9F with a wind chill of -29C/-20F. That wind chill has actually improved a bit but tonight we’re expected to get wind chills of -34C/-29F.
When I headed out this morning, it felt even colder. I did manage to check on the ejector, just enough to make sure the heat tape is still powered and doing its thing. I didn’t uncover it or check on how the melt is going, as I did not want to risk shattering the plastic taking off the cap and elbow in what was -35C/-31F wind chills at the time.
In a couple of days, though, I’ll probably unwrap it completely, to help it warm up! We are in for some temperature whiplash over the next while.
Yeah. We’re expected to go from -18C/0F to 2C/36F overnight. We’ll have a couple of mild days after that, then drop right back down again.
Looking at the monthly forecast, the next cold snap is supposed to last about a week, then we’ll be warming up at the end of January.
I hope it does warm up at the end of the month, because we now have two cats booked through the Cat Lady, one male one female (whichever ones we can catch). Which means we’ll have to close up the isolation shelter for 2 weeks again, keeping the other cats out.
A lot of them basically live in the cat shelter right now and hardly leave. Between the heat lamp and their body heat, it must be pretty warm in there!
Meanwhile, I’m waiting until Wednesday, when it’s supposed to go above freezing, to do any driving around and some errands.
I am getting really tired of this cold – and this is far from the coldest winter we’ve had since moving here! I’ve spent most of today drinking tea and eating hot soup, because this house just doesn’t really warm up in the winter.
The Re-Farmer 