After getting my routine stuff done this morning, I got sucked into the vortex of cats on my bed. I didn’t need to go under the covers. They plastered themselves on and around me, and kept me warm!
I fell asleep, but not for any excessive length of time, yet after I got up, it seemed like time just skipped an hour here, another hour there. Very odd.
I’m still fighting with my computer. It takes at least two tries to get it to boot up. I can’t do anything productive on it, but I can go online and browse or watch some videos. I can even play my Alien Crossfire, a game old enough that it doesn’t tax my system. At least until the mouse suddenly isn’t recognized anymore.
Hoping the new machine arrives early!
My husband asked me to go into town for something, so I took advantage of the trip to refill out big water jugs. It was still daylight when i went into the grocery store. It was full dark when I came out!
And raining.
It’s been a while since I drove in the dark, and I didn’t get very far, before I pulled into a gas station to clean my headlights!
The highways are fine to drive on, but the gravel roads are a mess. The shaded parts are still covered in ice and snow, so they are slippery, but that’s about it. The sections of bare gravel are horrible. The freeze/thaw cycle is tearing them apart, and it’s like driving on a washboard. The parts that are not as filled with potholes are no better. I could feel my back end trying to fishtail in the mud, more than on the wet ice!
We have one more day where the highs are expected to be above freezing, then we are supposed to get hit with another Colorado Low. The rain we’re getting now is expected to turn to sleet and snow for a couple of days. Saturday, which is when I’m taking the cats in to the spay clinic, is supposed to be clear again. Here’s hoping!
I’ll still take this over the -20C to -30C of past winters, any day!
Now to wrap my brain around the fact that it’s 7:30pm right now, instead of the 5:30pm it feels like, for some reason.
I’m in the city right now. I decided to get an oil change before heading into Costco, so I’m just waiting on that right now. I decided to check the weather conditions back home.
Wow!!
The highest temperature I saw in the forecasts was 6C, but we are at 8C now – and it’s not even the hottest part of the day, yet!
The is going to make the temperature drop tomorrow feel even colder. 😆
The city is usually a couple degrees warmer, but right now, it’s a couple degrees cooler where I am.
I was awakened by an army of cats demanding to be fed, so I finally got up to do that, a bit earlier than they usually get fed in the mornings. I tried going back to bed, and several of them “thanked” me, by laying down with me.
And on me.
At one point, I had four cats lying across one arm alone!
Eventually, I was able to crawl out from under them and got out to do my morning rounds about an hour later than usual. I was just finishing up when I came around the corner of the house and saw this.
There had actually been more of them in the paths to the bowls under the shrine, but a few ran off before I could get my phone out for a picture. It’s been so much warmer, I can’t get a good count of how many there are. They are a lot more active, and not staying as close to the house. They’re also not as hungry, which can only be helpful when it comes to the cat food supply! In fact, I went out to do the evening feeding before starting this, and didn’t have to add more kibble at all, there was so much still left!
I got a message from the Cat Lady this morning, to confirm how many females will be brought in for the cheap spay day. The clinic needs to know by Feb 1st, as spots are filling up fast. They’re doing males, too, but the spays are more intensive than the neuters, so they need to know. I’ve confirmed we’ll have 2 indoor females and 1 outdoor female, plus 1 indoor and 1 outdoor male. We’ll try to get the fluffy tortie indoors for overnight fasting, but we won’t be able to do that with an outdoor male. In fact, when it comes to an outdoor male, we’ll just grab whichever one we can get into a carrier! I would like it to be Shop Towel, but I didn’t even see him today, and there’s no way to be sure he’ll be around. We already do their evening feeding while it’s still light out, so the food is typically gone before 8pm, and that’s as close to having the outside cats fasting as we can get. The clinic does trapped ferals, too, so they are understanding if some cats may or may not have had an overnight fast, and are as prepared as they can be for that.
I’ve been informed that, along with the donated cat beds and other stuff the Cat Lady has for us, she’s got another kennel – by which she means, a cat carrier. I still am not used to her calling carriers, kennels. To me, a cat kennel is one of those wire cages, sometimes with multiple floors inside, and enough space for a litter box. Which I do want to get, to make it easier to isolate cats indoors. Right now, to do the overnight fasting, we’ll have to keep the fasting cats closed up in my room overnight. With needing to isolate 3 cats for fasting, that’s not too bad, but if we only need to do one, or a few kittens, a kennel would be far more efficient, and I wouldn’t have to worry about cats escaping if I have to go to the bathroom during the night!
After the morning rounds were done, it was my turn to do the upstairs cat litters (I can’t do the downstairs ones, as with my knees being so unstable, going up the stairs while carrying the buckets would not be safe for me to do). At the same time, I had the computer starting up. Last night’s upgrade was downloaded and the computer shut down, so it needed final installation when I turned it on. As a result, start up was even longer than it has been of late. Thankfully, everything seems fine. I’m still slowly going through things that I haven’t accessed for so long, all my saved passwords, etc. need to be input all over again. In some cases, I’ve even had to change passwords, because the ones I tried were coming up as “you are using an old password”. Frustrating. Still, it’s getting done, and the computer is behaving, and that’s what’s important.
Anyhow.
I never even made it to the computer this morning, other than turning it on. By the time I finished my chores and made breakfast, it was almost noon and, for some reason, I was incredibly sleepy. My daughters apparently were having issues, too. My younger daughter has been trying to go to bed early, then get up early, but Sunday nights is their regular gaming night with friends in various time zones. So she got up later this morning. My older daughter, who has gone back to working at night, partly to keep the cats from attacking her sister (who does the same for her during the day) had work to do, but was falling asleep at her computer, and ended up going to bed much earlier than usual. Neither of them got much sleep.
I was finished up my breakfast and my older daughter was chatting with me, and I was so tired, I was actually falling asleep mid sentence! I finally gave up and went for a nap. It wasn’t even 12:30, and I was planning to go to the post office to pick up a parcel when it opened at 2. Still, I figured at least an hour would be good!
Well, I did get about an hour or so. Which was interrupted.
I think I was lying down for less than half an hour, when the first interruption happened. My older daughter was in the kitchen, getting started on some cooking, when the power went out.
My daughter’s first thought was that the kitchen breaker was tripped, but nope. The furnace had been running at the time, which I can hear the loudest in my room, and that shut off.
Of course, what really got my attention was my hearing my computer shut off.
Not good, on a computer that is already on its last legs!!!
My daughter mentioned she had seen some trucks milling around at the intersection near our place, and wondered if they had done something. With all the fans and furnaces and whatnot off, even I could hear the reverse alarm from the trucks on the road.
My husband was in the process of trying to find a strong enough signal to report the power outage to the electric company with his phone, when my daughter, still in the kitchen, saw some guys at our power pole!
My husband went out to talk to them (I was only half awake through all this). He was told it was regular maintenance, and they apologized for cutting our power; they didn’t think anyone was home.
!!!
Normally, for things like regular maintenance, I would have received an email from the electric company, but not this time!
It was good to know that we lost power on purpose, though, rather than some sort of failure somewhere. It was back on again before long.
When 2 rolled around, my daughters did the wet cat food, and the cats surrounding me exploded the moment they heard a can open. While being used as a launching pad was rather painful, it did mean I could finally roll over onto my non-aching hip! It wasn’t long before I was enveloped in cats again, but I figured I could lie down for a bit longer. In fact, I’m going out to pick up our quarter beef tomorrow. Picking up the parcel can wait until then, right? I’ll just get a little bit more sleep.
Of course, when I did try to get up, I had even more cats on me. One of them was David, who doesn’t usually cuddle me – he prefers my daughters – so I didn’t want to move. My bladder, of course, had other ideas, so finally I dragged my butt out of bed. It wasn’t until after I’d talked to my husband for a while that I suddenly realized…
It was well past 4pm.
I’d slept for at least another two more hours!
I had no idea I was that tired! I’m not even sure why I was so tired. Sure, I had a cat-interrupted night, but it wasn’t any worse than usual!
So my plans for this afternoon just sort of disappeared, along with my day.
My plans involved things like vacuuming, so I’m not exactly heartbroken about it.
For now, I need to go through the trail cam files, which I normally would have done in the morning, and see how many more old files I can delete to clear more space on my computer.
It’s just past 7pm as I finish this. It’s full dark out right now – sunset is shortly after 5pm these days – but it’s still 2C/36F out there. So warm!! We had a high of 4C/39F, which is what we’re supposed to reach tomorrow, too – but the say after, we’re now getting a predicted high of 7C/45F!!! The 10 day forecast has us with highs above freezing every day. Woohoo!!! The record high for today was 3C/37F, back in 1976, while the record low was -38C/-36F in 2004. The average high for today is -12C/10F, so I am quite enjoying this break from our typical winter temperatures!
Not having the furnace running all the time is going to be much nicer on our electric bill, too!
Anyhow. Time to get my butt in gear, and get at least a few productive things done this evening!
I had intended to put this box in the shelf shelter, as the cats have broken and torn off most of the insulation “walls” I put across of fronts. It’s too big, so I stuck it in the water bowl house. It didn’t take long for Judgement to discover it!
It’s becoming quite warm out there. Yesterday, we reached 0C. Reports to the road conditions group I’m on described icy roads and even rain!
Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of -1C. We are already at -3C, with a “RealFeel” of +1C. In a few days, we are expected to reach highs several degrees above freezing for almost a week. I’ve even seen a forecast of +6C, but only from The Weather Network app on the TV, that we get through our Roku device. That’s the only one that’s connected to the Government of Canada data.
Speaking of the Government of Canada, the past few days has seen news that even filtered its way through the social media censors. It took this long for a federal court to rule that our Prime Dictator’s use of the Emergency Act against the trucker protests 2 years ago was, in fact, unconstitutional. Of course, everyone who read the Act knew that already, just like we all know all the mandates and restrictions were unconstitutional and illegal. There are still four political prisoners rotting in jail, once again denied bail.
Of course, our Supreme Leaders admit no wrong and plan to appeal. Why not? They don’t have to pay the course costs. We do. Listening to various Liberal and NDP politicians lying through their teeth in their responses is as disgusting as ever. Their paid media is having difficulty covering for them, but they do it, anyhow. Without all that government money flowing, they would have collapsed years ago. Only the independent media is reporting on it fully. At least, in beteen getting arrested or assaulted for asking questions.
I’m thankful to be out here in the boonies, and not in the cities right now. Aside from the increased costs, we are largely untouched by their shenanigans.
It’s getting really hard to afford to feed the kitties, though.
The Re-Farmer
(Dangit. I wrote this post this morning, and I was sure I published it. It’s now late evening, and I just found it in my drafts.
Interestingly, as I check the weather app this evening, we have actually warmed up a bit from this afternoon. We are at -14C right now. We are at -16C when I headed out shortly after noon to run errands.
But then, there is the windchill.
It feels like -27C out there!
To be honest, when I went out to feed the cats outside somewhere between 4 and 5 pm, it felt colder. The wind is from the south, which means we are getting the full force of it.
We really need a windbreak on our south side!
I’m so glad that heat lamp for the outside cats came in when it did!
We have a clear, sunny sky that looks so lovely right now!
It’s a lie.
It’s warmed up a degree from before I started my rounds this morning.
Short rounds, today!
I went to dump the cat litter sawdust buckets this morning, which had been waiting overnight in the old kitchen. Half the contents were frozen to the sides.
The sunroom, however, never dipped below -15C on the wall thermometer. I should use the temperature gun one of these nights, and see what it’s like under the platform, where the cats pile up.
This is the entryway door right now. All three windows are like this. This would happen every winter for as long as I can remember, since this part of the house was added on. There is frost built up on the bottom, too. We had tried attaching a sheet of insulation to the outside of the door in the past, but the air pressure change between the doors when it was opened would tear it off.
Replacing these doors with modern, insulated exterior doors is on the list, along with the matching door in the dining room.
Right about when we win the lottery. *sigh*
Our temperatures are not much to complain about. Certainly not like in parts of Alberta, which I’ve read was the coldest place in the world, yesterday. Temperatures dropped below -40C in places, with windchills below -50C.
At those temperatures, propane is a solid, so those with propane heat were in trouble. EV vehicles, of course, died quickly and took forever to charge. People waiting for their vehicles to charge had to bundle up, rather than use their heaters, or it would take even longer. The province’s wind and solar weren’t producing power, and the government put out a grid warning, asking people to avoid using electricity as much as possible, including the use of space heaters. Saskatchewan started providing electricity to Alberta, to help out.
At these temperatures, the only things that work for home heating is electricity sourced from coal, nuclear or hydro, natural gas, or burning wood. All but hydro is actively discouraged – systemically punished, even – and Alberta doesn’t have the water systems needed to produce hydro electricity.
It’s a potentially deadly situation.
So… yeah. It’s a bit nippy out, but we have nothing to complain about!
Well, we had a couple of first real tests of the winter today.
With how mild the winter has been so far, we didn’t really get a sense of how much difference the new roof has made.
The answer now is…
A lot.
The upstairs is not well insulated. It never has been. My mother never quite understood when I told her about how bad it is for the girls up there. She no longer remembers, and she never spent the night up there. My sister certainly remembers!
Even after putting sheets of insulation against the walls by their beds, and using space heaters, winters are bitterly cold up there. There is just one heat vent, going into the bedroom, but the air has lost all its heat before getting to the second floor. The room with the heat vent is colder than the one the stairs come up into! Sitting or lying near a wall was painfully cold, and they could see their breath. Not this year, though!
One thing they did was hang a blanket in the doorway between the rooms. That stopped the breeze that would hit my younger daughter’s back while she was sitting at her computer desk, and makes it easier for the space heater to warm the bedroom. The walls themselves, half of which are angled directly under the roof, no longer have waves of bone shattering cold coming off of them.
As for the crawl tunnel my brother stuffed with insulation, when we started to have water dripping from the bathroom ceiling…
The corner of the roof around the stack vent would melt away from all the heat loss above the bathroom. So far, there is no sign of that heat loss, and no water dripping from the bathroom ceiling.
The next test was my quick jaunt to the post office.
The roads were not plowed.
The short stretch from our driveway to the stop sign wasn’t too bad. The wind blew it completely flat, with most of the snow being blown down the road, rather than accumulating.
The main road, however, had the wind blowing across it, with a lot more accumulated snow. Especially for that first mile from our place, with trees on both sides. The second mile was clearer, as the wind could blow the snow into the fields. There were tracks I could follow down the middle of the road, at least. On the way back, as I was reaching the crossroad, there was an oncoming car about a quarter mile away. I simply pulled over at the intersection and waited for them to pass by, rather than have us both having to pull into the snow on either side to pass each other. I could see the other driver appreciated not having to break new tracks in deep snow! Snow has this terrible way of grabbing onto tires and drawing them downhill, towards the ditches – and the last thing anyone needs is to end up in these steep, narrow ditches! Four wheel drive or not, the likelihood of getting out without a tow is low!
If I had been driving the van, I would have turned around and gone home as soon as I reached the stop sign by our place and saw the condition of the main road. The truck’s extra height cleared the snow completely. It handled drive quite well, though I certainly would not have wanted to do any highway driving.
Today is supposed to reach a high of -7C or -8C, after which the temperatures are supposed to drop. An Alberta Clipper weather system is blowing its way through the prairies. The snow is supposed to start this afternoon, for a total of up to 15cm over 36 hours.
We already have a light dusting of snow right now. I didn’t get a head count, but the cats definitely prefer to be in the sunroom, or the cat house. Only the super fluffy ones, like Driver, here, are staying out. The sunroom was at just below 0C when I came in this morning, compared to -12C outside.
Today’s jump in temperature makes it a good day for the phone tech to come out! My brother tried to phone me yesterday and, instead of the crackling noise as before, he got a busy signal. Even when I pick up the phone, I now only hear the light crackling of an open line. My brother says we just have a short, somewhere. The question is, where?
I will be taking advantage of the warmer day and heading to town to pick up a few things. I hope the local hardware store has stove pellets for the litter. I don’t want to drive further afield, but we’re running low. We had lots, but have been going through it faster. Using oil in the cat’s ears, and the subsequent grooming, has had unfortunate effects on their digestive systems! Nothing like so many cats having the s***s at the same time!
We’ve taken a break on doing their ears right now. The next time we do them, we need to keep track of which cats still have too much detritus in their ears and keep doing them. Some are nice and clean, so no need to keep doing theirs, anymore.
Hopefully, the phone tech will come in the next hour or so, before I plan to head out. Otherwise, I’ll be leaving the gate open for him. He’s supposed to try and call my husband’s cell phone, first, but who knows if he’ll have enough signal.
Meanwhile, it was nice enough out that I shoveled the outer yard paths, to the garage, burn barrel, and electricity meter. Depending on how much snow accumulates over the next few days, we might need to break little Spewie out and do the driveway. For now, though, the truck can easily clear the snow we have so far.
I just got back from the post office and brought this home. The heat lamp for the sun room. It’s assembled and ready to hang up. I’m going to let it all come to room temperature before I try to hang it up and turn it on.
This is much better than what we used before, which was never intended to be used for anything other than keeping the pipes under the kitchen sink from freezing. This is a brooder lamp, so it’s meant to keep critters warm, safely. The bulb guard being particularly appreciated. Sure, a cat could still stick it’s head in, though I’ll be sure to hang it where that is not likely to happen. More likely is an accidental brushing. Between the bulb guard and the depth of the reflective shade, that is no longer a concern.
There is the option to hang it from a hook, or using a clamp. I expect to be using the clamp, but it’s good to have choices.
We are not expected to have daytime highs below -20C for a while yet, but overnight lows have already dropped to that point. The city we lived in last is expecting to drop colder than -30C, so we don’t have much to complain about.
In other news, I got a voice mail on my cell phone. It never rang, but at least it took a message.
It was the computer repair place, letting me know my machine is ready to pick up.
!!!
I had thought it was a lost cause, but no. He got it going. It takes about 5 minutes to boot up (it was taking that long for a while, now), but it’s working again. The total bill, including saving and backing up my data, is almost $300. Much cheaper than a new computer!
I do still need a new computer. The hardware is giving out and it’s not worth replacing it all, but it does give us time to figure out getting the funds for a new machine. Or even a refurbished one.
I don’t know when we’ll be going into the city next, to pick it up. That gives us time to scrape the money together to pay for it.
Then there is the cost of replacing the valve stems on the truck.
Then there is getting my mother’s car in to see what the damage is, and how much it will cost to fix.
My husband has an eye appointment coming up and will need new glasses. The last time he got glasses, it cost over $1500, most of it for his special lenses, some 15 or so years ago. His insurance currently covers only about $400.
Then there is…
Then there is…
Then there is…
It just doesn’t end, does it?
However, the kitties will be nice and warm. I think the lamp is ready to hang up, now!
I’m happy to say that I have no errands to run, no unexpected outings, nothing. Just a day to stay home, inside and out of the wind!
We’ve had a very mild winter so far, but as we head towards the end of January and into February, we are expected to get more average temperatures. Not so much that we need to worry about the vehicles freezing, or even plug them in. Which is good, since I discovered the truck’s block heater plug end was ripped off and never repaired. Clearly, it wasn’t an issue for whomever owned it before. This thing can handle the cold much better than the van could.
We do need to try and get the garage door closed, though. One corner wheel came off the track. I’m hoping that, if one person is able to push up the opposite corner, it will move the loose corner close enough to the track to be able to get it back on. This is something to do on a warmer day and will require taking the truck out, setting up a little ladder at one corner, and the folding scaffolding set at the other. It will take three of us to manhandle the thing. One to push up the opposite corner, one to move the loose corner towards the track, and one to try and get the wheel back on the track. It’s an unusually large door for its type.
The outside cats are appreciating being out of the wind. This morning, I counted 33 of them. Last winter, we had a ceramic heat bulb set up for them, but the old fixture we were using stopped working. We currently have a replacement on the way. What we had before was something my brother had put together to set up under the kitchen sink, so the heat from an incandescent light bulb would help prevent pipes from freezing, while the house was empty. The kitchen has no heat vent, so it was the one area of concern in the house.
What we are getting is a clip-on lamp designed for chickens. It has a heat reflector shade and comes with a ceramic bulb. I plan to set it up facing under the platform, which will have the added benefit of the sheet of insulation above, to help keep the heat in their favorite sleeping spot. If it gets too warm, they can go on top of the platform. The only thing I’m not sure of is how I will attach it securely. I’ll figure that out, once it arrives, and I can see exactly how the clamp is designed.
Meanwhile, we are still figuring out our phone problems. I spoke to my brother, through Messenger, and told him we thought the problem was the jack in my husband’s room. My brother suggested we simply detach that jack and see. I never even thought of that! So I went into the basement and traced the wire to the hub, and removed it.
Nothing changed.
My brother said it sounded like moisture got into a jack, which is what we think, too. Likely due to our two fixed males that still spray! There are two other jacks on the ground floor, but there is no way cats or moisture could get to either of those. That leaves the one jack upstairs, which we’ve never used, which could have had damage to it. So, one of my goals for today is to find and trace that wire and remove it.
If that doesn’t do it, then the problem is something else, and we’ll have to call someone in.
The main problem is, either how we have things set up, it’s hard to access all but one of the jacks. We will have to clear things for a tech to reach them, if he needs do.
Speaking of clearing things, once Christmas is over on Jan 6, and we store away our decorations, we need to rearrange parts of the living room again, so I can access the big aquarium greenhouse. We need to get our onion seeds started!
Then we will need to bring other things in from the sun room, including one of the shop lights, to set up our growing zone again. We won’t be able to do the same setup as we did last year, but I think we might not be starting quite so many seeds indoors this year. We shall see.
The Re-Farmer 