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Morning critters

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Butterscotch and Nosencrantz were doing very well, this morning. They both seem to be enjoying their recovery period in the sun room! Nosencrantz wants more attention than Butterscotch, but not enough that I can get a good look to see how the ear mite status is. Butterscotch is still so much calmer now. She’ll come over for pets and I was even able to pick her up this morning, but she will not let me check the surgical site. I’m not about to risk injuring it by forcing her; so as long as there aren’t any concerning warning signs, I figure she’s doing fine. Amazingly, she still has shown no interest in trying to escape the sun room, which is so totally different from the past. Granted, when we were trying to keep her in the sun room for lengths of time before, it was because she was about to have kittens. Once she had them, she was more than content to let Beep Beep parent both litters while she tore her way through the screen on the old door.

If this behavioural change keeps up, Butterscotch may actually be willing to become an indoor cat!

We shall see. After all those years outdoors, it would be nice for her final years to be in comfort and safety.

By the time I’m done taking care of the sun room kitties, there’s usually a crowd outside the door, waiting for their kibble! Chadiccus, however, was much more polite about it and wanting attention before food. :-)

The water in the heated bowl was almost completely gone again, and it had been very full. It does make me wonder what other critters are coming around at night, to drink. The snow around the kibble house and water bowls is too hard packed for tracks. One of these days, it would be nice to have a spare camera set up on the area, just to see what’s going on! :-)

I’ve not been seeing quite as many cats, all at once, of late. I haven’t seen Potato Beetle in a while. Since he came back, he had been more aggressive about being the Alpha male – though he was tackling the females as much as the males. That seemed to end after I found him with that injury above one eye. It was pretty minor and healing up nicely, the last I saw, but it seems that battle lost him his status. I think I might have seen him this morning, but he slunk away before I could get a good look and be sure.

While putting the food and water out, I heard a loud yowling from the outer yard. I’ve heard it before, but when I when to check, I couldn’t see where it was coming from. This time, I saw Creamsicle Baby out by the pump shack. I’m still not sure it was him, as he’s developed a very squeaky little meow. I went to check closer and decided the pump shack door needed to be shoveled out.

This is where the cats usually get in and out of the pump shack. When the driveway was cleared, a pile of snow was made near the pump shack. While it does not block the door, there’s a ridge of snow in front that’s pretty high. With the winds we’ve been having, more snow has drifted in front of the door. The cats are still squeezing their way through, as you can see in the photo above, but I wanted to make it easier for them. It took breaking up a lot of snow with the ice chipper before I could dig a path, but I got it clear.

The door opens inward, so I didn’t have to worry about digging it out too much. Once I got it clear enough, I went in and cleared away some snow that had blown through the hole.

I had a bit of a surprise when I opened the door, though. One of the lights was on! I forgot to shut it off, the last time I was in there. It’s a CFL bulb, not very bright, and not near a window facing the house, so we never saw that it was on. :-D Ah, well. No harm done.

When repairing the south facing window of the pump shack a couple of summers ago, I deliberately left an opening that used to have the chimney from a wood burning stove running through it. The stove is long gone, but with a pile of tires on the outside, and various junk on the inside, it’s a way for the cats to get in and out. The shack itself is just a frame with cladding on the outside, and I noticed a new hole in the wall, where some cladding has broken. It’s not visible from the outside, as there are sheets of aluminum against the bottom of the wall on that side.

On our list of things to work on is to fix up the pump shack. The concrete floor is badly cracked up, and the old cladding – which would be quite a bit older than I am – is looking water damaged and has gaps. It would be awesome to turn this building into a little workshop and, of course, we want to get the old well repaired. There is a lot of stuff in there I just don’t know what to do with, including bags of ancient clothing and rolled up awnings stuffed into the rafters, broken furniture, an old fridge that I remember my parents using for cream cans, and even an old, tiny, two burner electric stove sitting in the corner where the wood burning cookstove used to be. That old cookstove was what we used to heat water for baths, before my dad had the well dug next to the house and got running water and an indoor bathroom. If we can fix the well and fix up the pump shack, we could turn it into a summer kitchen for canning.

That would be very handy.

After clearing a cat path to the door, I put feed out for the deer and birds – interrupting two deer that were at the feeding station! I had to interrupt them again, to go switch out the memory cards on the trail cam by the sign.

That location is a real pain to get to in the winter!!! At least I don’t have to switch the cards as often, there. Between the snow and the plow ridges, I’m not at all concerned that our vandal will fight his way over to the sign and try to steal it, like the old one, or damage it.

Not even the deer will go through the area in front of the sign! A nicely plowed road is so much easier. :-D

Coming back to the house, I found these two babies, bellies full and watching the world go by in warmth and comfort!

These cats may be semi-feral, but they do get pampered as much as we can! :-D

Rolando Moon had claimed the prime real estate! She’s such a meany to the other cats, they don’t even try to fight her for this favourite spot.

Gosh, that expression! :-D

While still a bit chilly today, we’re supposed to warm up quite a bit tomorrow – perfect for taking Beep Beep and Fenrir in to the vet. My Weather Network app on my desktop has suddenly gone haywire, so I used the app that came with my computer.

Of course, all the apps are showing something different, since they all seem to be connected to different weather stations, even though they’re all supposed to be for our specific area. This is the only one that is showing us going above freezing, in the long range forecast. Above freezing in the middle of February? Yeah, I’ll take that, thanks. It’ll make things messy, but I’d rather have a nice, slow melt of all this snow, then for things to warm up all at once, later on. With the amount of snow we have this winter, as much as it’s needed, if it melts before the municipalities get a chance to clear the ditches, we’ll get flooding. Where we are doesn’t get too bad anymore. When I was a kid, there were a couple of sections of road that would get washed out every spring. Since then, a network of municipal drainage ditches have been dug through farmers’ fields that have been doing a good job of preventing that, as has taking trees out along the sides of the roads in strategic locations. There are still a couple of spots that are at risk of being washed out, if there is enough snowmelt all at once, but we are able to use alternative routes to avoid them.

If we have a wet enough spring, we might even be able to do a controlled burn in some sections of the outer yard this year. Wouldn’t that be nice!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Seeing those warmer temperatures in the forecast has me looking way too far ahead right now! :-D

The Re-Farmer

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Back to our regular programming – Cats!

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We had another storm sweep through the area, but that climate bubble sitting over us resulted in our having a bit of snow and wind, but nothing that could possibly be called a storm.

The outside cats are quite good with that!

Especially since it’s also warming up a bit.

I even got to pet the Distinguished Guest this morning.

Their heated water bowl was almost completely empty this morning. That actually made it easier to clean. I could scrub the bottom with snow, then just scoop out the dirty snow.

The metal water bowls were, of course, filled with ice. These are all old stainless steel frying pans with their handles broken off. I’ve found they make the best water bowls, as they can handle a lot of abuse. Like being kicked and stomped until the break loose from the ice and snow.

I wasn’t able to get a photo, but after getting one of them loose, there was something strange and mirror-like under it.

The pan had split!

This pan had one of those multi-layer bases for even heat distribution. Between getting filled with warm water, then frozen to the ground, then kicked loose, repeatedly, the base layer finally just popped right off! I look forward to getting a better look at it, once the ground thaws. I’m not going to bother trying to dig it out, now. :-D

Butterscotch and Nosencrantz are doing very well in the sun room. After moving the sheets of rigid insulation I had to reduce drafts from the window, Butterscotch now likes to sit there, under the ceramic heater bulb. Nosnecrantz, meanwhile, prefers sitting on the fixture! We’ve got the full spectrum light bulb hanging from the top of the mini-greenhouse frame we’re using to hold all this, with the board the ceramic heater bulb supported by the top shelf. I had some concerns about leaving the light on constantly, since I thought the cats might actually want full darkness at time, but Nosencrantz loves it. Though there are several soft beds in boxes she can choose from, she’s preferring to sleep on a board, under the light! I’m guessing the board itself is a bit warm, just from rising heat from the ceramic bulb.

Speaking of warm, check this out.

Not only are we still expected to reach 1C/34F in a couple of days, but now we’re supposed to reach 3C/37F a couple of days later!

With more snow.

Whatever. I’m loving this milder February we’re having this year!

The Re-Farmer

A new path, and more convoy talk

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

The wind changed direction this afternoon, so I took advantage of it and headed outside to shovel the path to the compost ring that was completely filled in. Knowing we would be getting a delivery from the pharmacy this evening, I made sure to unlock the gate, first. The driver always calls when he’s close so we can unlock the gate, but I knew I would still be outside when he did.

Once I got the path to the compost ring clear, I continued on and cleared the path to the back door of the garage. It want much faster, since it doesn’t get blown in as much.

I had just reached the back door of the garage when I saw a car pulling up near the chain link fence.

To go to meet him, I had to take the path to the compost ring, across to the house, then down the sidewalk to the person gate he’d pulled up to.

I’ve been meaning to make a path from the back of the garage to the vehicle gate for a while. I wish I’d done it earlier! LOL

By the time I was done, it was getting dark. I had to adjust the lighting in this photo, just to see the new path! It now joined up with the path dug along the garden bed between the two gates, where there is a path to the driveway.

Normally, the inner yard would be cleared of snow enough for us to drive up to the house, with room towards the outhouse for turning, and we wouldn’t have needed all these little paths. Last year, we were able to keep it clear just with our little Spewie, but there is too much snow for the little thing, this year. We probably could have done it if the big snow blower was working. When I was a kid, my dad would use the old Farm Hand tractor to push snow into a pile about where the kibble house is now. It would reach most of the way between the house and the maples that our now outside the chain link fence, but used to be part of the inner yard back then. I remember one year, my siblings and I carved the pile of snow into three sets of stairs, with tunnels in between, leading to a two step platform at the top. The centre staircase had a wide, curved bottom step. We wanted to carve a throne at the top, but the snow pile wasn’t tall enough. :-D Gosh, that was fun!

This year, we’ve got snow more like what I remember as a kid.

Anyhow, without the heavier equipment, paths will have to do!

It was as I was near the garage door, and having to fling the snow ever higher, that I finally noticed just how deep it was.

I couldn’t quite stretch my arm out far enough to get a good angle, but the snow here is about hip height on me. Maybe a bit higher.

No, not all of where I was shoveling was that deep, though I wasn’t exactly shovelling right down to the ground in most of the paths, either.

After I cleared the new path, I kept on going, clearing the path in front of the garden bed, then scraping the sidewalk and clearing it wide enough for my husband’s walker. Which is really handy, when we have to use the wagon to haul stuff from the van to the house, like the sack of deer feed and other stuff I picked up today. Then I went ahead and cleared the cat paths, too, while there was still light out.

Clearing those paths is getting harder in places. The piles of snow from all the shoveling are getting high enough that the new snow I’m shovelling slides back down if I don’t throw it far enough – or falls into another path if I throw it too far! LOL

The cats were very happy with the cleared paths. :-)

As I write this, I can see more snow blowing around in the live feed from the security camera. I’m glad I got it done when I did! It’s still rather warm out – only -8C/18F as I write this. We’re supposed to have a high of -18C/-0.4F tomorrow, then it’s supposed to warm up a little bit again, and stay there for the next week. Much nicer than the couple of days of deep freeze we got, when our mini-convoy headed out, and the big one passed through our province.

That’s one of the amazing things about the convoy for freedom. This is happening in Canada, in flippin’ January. A friend of mine in the city had gone out to cheer the convoy as it passed by. She estimated there were about 150 people, just around where she was. It was about -32C/-26F where she was, at the time. In places, the convoy is so long, it took 4 hours to go by, with people outside, cheering them on, the whole way!

As the main convoy makes its way from the Western provinces towards Ottawa, more mini-convoys from the Eastern provinces are starting to make their way out as well. They don’t have as far to go, so they started later, timed so everyone gets there on the 29th. I heard there were so many trucks from Newfoundland, they got a ferry out just to take the trucks across. I’ve also heard that one of the border crossings into Ontario had so many truckers from the US coming in to join the convoy, the line stretched back 70 miles!

Our mainstream media has been avoiding reporting on it as much as possible, but they can’t avoid it any more. Of course, they are misreporting it, completely. One of the things they’re doing is wildly underreporting how many trucks there are. It’s just a few trucks, according to them. Not very many. There is also the usual, predictable slanderous reporting. They’re portraying the truckers as “anti-vaxxers” (most of them are vaccinated, and if they’re coming in from the US, they’re allowed to cross only if fully vaccinated), of course. Today, they’ve been ramping up the disparaging portrayal. The truckers are white supremacists, right wing, extremists, racists, and homophobes. You know. All the tired old insults that get thrown out so much, the terms have lost all meaning. Then there is that truly Canadian insult that comes from the leftist media that gets trotted out every election, and is being trotted out now. The truckers are inspired by *gasp* “American style politics.” Apparently, being compared to Americans is supposed to be an insult. This time, one news station even suggested that the convoy is somehow inspired by the January 6/2021 protests in the US that the media continues to lie about. They are really pushing the idea that the truckers and their supporters are violent crazies. Oh, and another claim that is supposed to be an insult: the truckers are “anti-government”. Because if you don’t 100% agree with what the current government is doing, that can only mean you are “anti-government”.

It’s all BS of course. Unfortunately, too many people believe it, and it’s endangering lives. A number of trucks were found to have their pins pulled. In one incident, a trucker who was not part of the convoy, and did not agree with it, apparently deliberately rammed his own truck into a truck that was part of the convoy. It’s been portrayed by the media as an “accident”. With the way the media is whipping up hatred and division – while accusing the truckers in the convoy of spreading hatred and division – they may very well get people killed.

And our Prime Dictator? Apparently, he’s on vacation in Costa Rica right now, though I don’t know if that’s true.

Thankfully, we have independent media who reporting on the convoy with better accuracy and truthfulness. Best of all are all the people who are documenting it themselves and posting about it. Like this guy.

Language warning!

It’s absolutely amazing! Our Prime Dictator has actually managed to accomplish something useful, in spite of himself. He has united the country. Against him! I have never seen so many wildly diverse groups, completely united in their support for the convoy and the push to end all the mandates.

The guy who made the above video is just one of many supporters, and he can only cover so much. We are also seeing many First Nations groups stepping forward in support. FN peoples are notorious about not getting involved in anything that could be considered even remotely political, with good reason. I’d mentioned before that a group of Hutterites had planned to set up kitchens to feed the truckers. The police wouldn’t let them, apparently because the parking lot was too full, so they drove 2 1/2 hours to the next major city, ahead of the convoy, and set up there, determined to feed them all. The GoFundMe has, as of this writing, reached over $5.7 million. I can’t even estimate how many hundreds of people are even joining the convoy in their own vehicles, so it’s not just a convoy of long haul truckers, but of all sorts of vehicles, too. Then there are the people getting together to prepare meals in take-out containers to hand out to the truckers, people arranging for things like porta-potties along routes where public washrooms are few and far between, and on it goes.

Meanwhile, there is stuff like Facebook deleting groups supporting the convoy, all of Toronto’s traffic cams along the 401 not working, people posting their own videos on social media are finding there is no share button for some reason, and I’ve lost track of the number of people I know who have found themselves suddenly restricted from posting on social media, and not knowing why. For all that, there is still tonnes of stuff out there, for all to see, showing what’s actually happening, and how huge this whole thing is.

Our Prime Dictator has already tried to call in the military and RCMP to stop the convoy, and they refused. So far, publicly, he’s been vocal about framing the truckers as angry (duh!) and potentially dangerous people, chastising them and their supporters for being angry, saying we don’t want to be that way as Canadians. Pure gaslighting, of course. The only truckers he’s talked to is an organization that is heavily connected to the Liberal party, condemns the convoy, but does not actually represent the truckers at all.

It’s a remarkable thing to see happening, and I honestly don’t know how it’s going to turn out. What I do know is that it is going to affect all our lives, here in Canada.

The Re-Farmer

Update: I just had to include this video, too.

How quickly things change!

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Today we have been steadily warming up. When I headed out to do my rounds this morning, it was up to -15C/5F and looking lovely.

Lovely, until I actually stepped outside.

The wind was coming from the south again, which means we were getting the full brunt of it. The wind chill at the time was around -35C/-31F. It actually felt colder, after things had warmed up, than it did when we were at -25C/-13F.

The south winds whip around the corners of the house, blowing snow into the kibble house! I had to knock snow out of all the kibble trays before I could put food in them, then dig out the water bowls. You can see in the photo, the crust that formed on top of the heated water bowl.

Smart Nosencrantz, quickly ate, then went back into the nice warm shelter!

The path to the compost heap is completely gone.

I was going to shovel it out this morning, but the winds were just too severe. Instead, I went to the gate at the driveway. As long as we’re on the inside of the gate, the trees in the old hay yard block most of the winds from the south.

With the snow we’ve been having, it’s been blocking our ability to open the gate all the way. When our angel with the front end loader cleared our driveway, there was less space at the gate because of this, creating a bit of a bottleneck just inside the gate that was slowly closing in, more and more. I was able to clear enough know that we can at least swing the two sides of the gate until they are 90 degrees with the gate posts.

Note how nice and bright it is in the above photo. Wind was the only issue to deal with. I had to go into town later, and of course checked the weather. We were supposed to get snow later, but the weather radar showed clear skies. I kept zooming out to see where this weather system was, but everything was clear. I thought there was something wrong with the data until I zoomed out enough to see some rain heading across towards Florida. !! And yet, when I went online, I was seeing people reporting road conditions on the highways, talking about poor visibility and drifting highways. ???

The call we got about Cabbages came just in time, as I needed to head out before the general store our post office is in closed for the day; they are open only half a day on Wednesdays. We had some packages to pick up there, then I had to go to town to pick up a Purolator delivery at their drop off point, since we are not in their delivery zone.

What a difference a bit of time makes.

Clearly, the weather radar was messed up. It had started to snow by the time I left, and the couple of miles on the main gravel road to the highway was drifting over quite a bit. In the time I spent at the general store to get our packages and some more deer feed, the winds were dying down, but the snow was heavier.

Then there was the drive to town. Yikes! The closer I drove to the lake, the heavier the snowfall, and the worse the visibility. The roads were not icy, though, so it was still okay to drive, if a bit slower.

The parcel I went to pick up, however, wasn’t there. We had gotten a call from Purolator to find out where they should drop the package off; it was either the town we usually go to, East of us, or the town my mother lives on, which is further away. When we told them where to drop it off, they said the package would be there by 11am. When I got there, however, the person working there told me the drivers always come at 2pm!

Well, we certainly weren’t going to come back today, but we do have a week to pick it up, once it arrives.

This place is also a small convenience store that also does takeout. Since I was there anyhow, I splurged and got a bucket of mini donuts. :-D Happily, I had a small insulated bag in the van to keep them warm for the drive home. So it wasn’t a wasted trip, after all. ;-)

As for the drive home, the snow was falling even more heavily, especially in our area.

I’m so glad we’ve got good snow tires.

This is what it was like when I got home, keeping in mind that the camera on my phone automatically clears images up, so I can actually see more in the photo, than I could while taking it!

Then it was gone.

As I write this, the snow has stopped, and I can barely even see branches moving in the trees outside my window. We have warmed up to -8C/18F, and are still expected to reach a high of -3C/27F. Not quite as warm as had been forecast previously, but I’m certainly not complaining!

I’m glad this winter has been so much milder than the last two winters, and certainly thankful for the snow we’re having, that will be such a boon to farmers in the spring. It does make getting around more difficult, though!

The Re-Farmer

Morning rounds still have to be done, and more convoy talk

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After the very sad call this morning about Cabbages, I headed out to do my morning rounds and take care of the outside kitties.

Though the temperatures at the time were about -28C/-18F, it actually felt a lot warmer. At least around the house. There was a wind chill, but the wind is from the west, so we weren’t really feeling it. The outside cats were a lot more active, too.

It was feeling warm enough that I shoveled out the burn barrel again, and got it going.

We clear enough space to have room for the bags of burnables. That wall of snow is now taller than the barrel in places!

We couldn’t use the burn barrel in the summer, because of the drought, but we are now burning the wood pellet cat litter, instead of having a cat litter compost behind the outhouse. With so much snow around, I let it go down to a smolder, then put the cover on and leave it. It can continue smoking for days. As the pellets are used by the cats, they break up into sawdust. Which then freezes when the girls dump it into the burn barrel. By leaving it to smolder, the sawdust slowly thaws out, dries out, then smolders. It can take a few days, but it eventually gets burned away. It’s been so cold, though, I’m still finding frost inside the burn barrel when I uncover it, even as smoke still rises from the contents!

As soon as I cleared the area around the barrel and moved on to clear the path to the electricity meter, the space around the burn barrel got filled with cats! Not only does the space give them shelter, but the smoldering barrel gives off a bit of heat, too.

Still not as cozy as an insulated, sheltered, sun spot!

Oh, I got a peak at Potato Beetle this morning. The wound on his head seems to be healing up just fine. I could barely see the wound, and he looks more like he’s got a weird bald spot.

In other things, I’ve been keeping on top of what’s going on with the trucker convoy. This is something that affects us, even out in the boonies. We are surrounded by farms, and farmers need truckers. Heck, a lot of them have their own trucks. Most farmers have to have some other source of income. Farming doesn’t pay very well and, unlike most businesses, farmers have to buy retail and sell wholesale, instead of the other way around. So everyone around here is very supportive.

So are many others.

Last night, I heard that an estimated 10,000 truckers from various US states are heading for the border to join the convoy. Those that are not allowed to cross the border plan to stay at the border. Chances are, there are even more truckers from even more states by this morning.

The provincial convoy that started yesterday is still at the city. The national one is expected to arrive this afternoon, and they will join up and continue on to Ottawa.

In the Facebook groups supporting the convoy, I’m seeing numerous restaurant owners announcing that anyone in the convoy will be fed, for free. Food truck owners are announcing where they will be setting up to provide food. At least one of the Hutterite colonies has announced they are setting up kitchens in one of the muster points to feed everyone in the convoy.

Garages are offering free mechanical repairs.

People are offering their extra bedrooms for overnight stays, and bringing meals to the truckers.

The GoFundMe has topped $4,000,000. Because of how eager our government and GoFundMe are to prevent the money from actually getting to the truckers, there is a whole process worked out where truckers will be submitting receipts to be reimbursed for expenses, etc.

I haven’t confirmed it yet myself, but people have talked about finding the traffic cams along the convoy route are showing images of empty roads, or have simply been shut down.

The mainstream media is finally reporting on the convoy, but have been misrepresenting it like crazy. Almost all that I’ve seen have been reporting wildly lower numbers. A CBC article that tried to claim the truckers were protesting icy road conditions was so inundated by people calling them on it merely added a “correction”, saying they were talking about a different protest. Which they weren’t, because there were no truckers out there, protesting winter. Others I’ve seen have tried to say the truckers are protesting only the most recent mandate made against them. They aren’t. They are protesting to have all government mandates and restrictions for everyone, ended. That last mandate against them was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, after being treated like crap for years.

Commenters have been calling out the media like crazy for their misinformation and sloppy reporting. What’s interesting as well have been the (very few) detractors. I’m seeing people say things like, what difference does it make for them to protest in Ottawa, when it’s the US that won’t let them cross the border. Which has nothing to do with what the convoy is about. I’m guessing some media somewhere claimed that, and they believed it. Others have been calling the truckers selfish and making the usual insults about people just being scared of needles. I’m still seeing people saying that losing their jobs is just a consequence of their “choice” not to get the vaccine, and calling them anti-vaxxers. Most truckers are vaccinated, bigots don’t care about truth or reality.

I think the funniest detractors are those trying to portray the truckers and their supporters as PPC “cultists” (the PPC are the People’s Party of Canada, a new party that ran in the last federal election). Even more laughable are those trying to accuse the truckers of “dividing Canada”. I haven’t seen Canada more united over something in my life. I’ve even seen people dismissing the truckers for protesting now, instead of when our Prime Dictator called a useless, early election.

Oh, I just tried looking something up and saw that the GoFundMe has now exceeded $4.4million. Someone posted a screencap showing a $10,000 anonymous donation. I also just found this screencap.

May be an image of text that says "#TruckersForFreedom ForFreedom #FreedomConvoy2022 Rollando Lepageo Colorado 420 trucks Georgia 675 trucks South Carolina 650 trucks California 19,000 trucks Heading to Canada 1h Love Reply 2 2:55 AM. Jan 25, 2022. Twitter for Android"

If for some reason you can’t see the image, it reads:

Colorado 420 trucks
Georgia 675 trucks
South Carolina 650 trucks
California 19,000 trucks
Heading to Canada

Way to go, California!! Assuming that’s not a typo. That’s a massive number.

Not on this list are the trucks coming from Tennessee, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Alaska and Florida, that I’ve seen elsewhere.

The most recent update I’ve heard is that the main convoy from BC is now over 150km long. That’s over 93 miles. I don’t think they’ve even crossed the middle of Canada yet, and more mini-convoys are joining all along the way.

What I’m not hearing is much from our politicians. Including our own Premier. I might just be missing it. As for our Prime Dictator, I’ve heard he’s on another vacation. The truckers are supposed to arrive in Ottawa on the 29th. Parliament was supposed to resume today, though from the parliamentary calendar, they’re scheduled to sit in parliament for only 1 day this month, and that’s on January 31.

The truckers and their supporters don’t plan to leave Ottawa until all mandates and restrictions are lifted.

It should be interesting to see how our “leaders” handle this.

The Re-Farmer

We’re getting warmer. Honest!

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I delayed heading outside to do my morning rounds, to warm up a bit before having the outside cats come out of their shelters for kibble.

I finally gave up and just headed out, because I knew they would be hungry. I was inside for a while before I took the above screencap. Yup. Almost noon, and we were still at -28C/-18F with a wind chill of -38C/-36F The wind was from the south west, though, not the south east, so the yard was protected.

I didn’t see as many of them this morning, and there was even kibble still in the tray under the shrine, from being topped up yesterday evening, so they were not too hungry. :-)

The Distinguished Guest is looking rather disheveled! She could use a good brushing. Not that we’d be able to. She lets me pet her while at the kibble house, but that’s as far as it goes. Mind you, that’s still more than we get with most of the outside cats that were born here!

Chadicous was quite happy to get some loving!

Such a handsome boy!

Once inside and putting a kettle on, I saw a flash of movement through the dining room window.

These two had come bounding through the yard to the feeding station! They looked so very excited. :-D It’s funny that they come running, and these same two deer come back several times a day, for that little bit of feed I put out. Especially since we’ve got chickadees, Blue Jays, Pine Grossbeaks and probably squirrels, going at it, too.

The good news is, we will keep warming up through to tomorrow.

They’re again telling us we’ll hit -4C/25F – the forecast changes frequently, of course – and we’re supposed to stay warmer than -20C/-4F for about a week. Even after that, we’re supposed to be just a degree or two colder, for the rest of the month.

I’m sure the critters will be enjoying that!

The Re-Farmer

Winter wonderland. Yeah. That’s it!

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Oh, my goodness, am I even more thankful our neighbour happened by and cleared our driveway for us a couple of days ago!

Because having this, on top of what was there before, would have been much harder to clear away with little Spewie! LOL

Yes, that’s our plowed driveway. Not even the deer have been going around.

We had blowing snow all night, and from how high it was on my boots, I’d say we got about 4 or 5 inches of new snow. Light and fluffy stuff, though, so easy to shovel. My husband had gone out to give food and water to the outside cats earlier. It had warmed up to -12C/10F, but by the time I went out, it had cooled down to -15C/5F, and as I write this, it has dropped to -16C/3F with a wind chill of -26C/-15F. The wind is now from the north west, though, so we’re pretty sheltered from it.

With the high winds we had blowing snow all night, I am seriously considering skipping our dump run today. It doesn’t look the like roads have been plowed yet. I had to get to the door at the back of the garage and found myself trudging through snow that was knee deep. I shoveled some of the paths, and either the girls or I will head out later to do the rest.

We’re supposed to get cold again for the next couple of days, then scream up to -5C/23F (or -8C/18F, depending on which app I’m looking at) on Tuesday. Even the gravel roads should be cleared by then, and that’s when the dump is open next. Maybe we will wait, since we also have to pick up packages at the post office.

Frankly, I’d much rather shovel snow then go out anywhere, anyhow!

The Re-Farmer

Enjoying a “warm” day

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As I write this we are at an almost balmy -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -34C/-29F, and we’re supposed to continue to get warmer over the next couple of days.

Remarkable how our ideas of “warm” and “cold” change, when living somewhere that has such temperature extremes throughout the year!

Yesterday evening, I’d treated the outside cats with a warm, meaty broth over their kibble top up, but this morning I found quite a bit of the kibble in frozen broth! It froze before the cats could eat it all, and the crowd of them was eating fast when I went back inside.

While the outside cats clearly don’t like the cold, they are doing quite all right, and spend a lot of time outdoors, instead of in one of the many shelters they have available for them. Seeing Chadicous exuberantly rolling on the snow sort of hits home how different the outside and inside cats are. It’s also a reminder of how important it is to let the outside cats develop their natural defenses against the cold. These are from generations of outdoor cats. They have the genetics to develop that insulating fur and body fat they need. Yes, they can still freeze, and having the heated cat shelter is a good thing, but it is equally important that it not be too warm in there, as that would seriously mess them up and potentially harm or kill them.

If our inside cats ever got outside in the temperatures we have now, most of them wouldn’t last more than an hour, even though most of them either started out as outdoor cats, or are from the same gene pool. Then there’s Fenrir. She has her long fur, but no undercoat, and that’s why we brought her indoors during her first winter. I don’t know where she came from or what breed she is, but it certainly wasn’t from any local cold-hardy genetics! A cat like David, with his long fur and deep, thick undercoat, would last longer, but having been in a warm house all the time, not even he would last long if he suddenly ended up outdoors. This is where going out through the sun room has its benefits, as it gives us two buffer zones, should the cats try to dash outside. Oddly, only Fenrir seems to actually be trying to do that. While other cats make a run for it, they’re more interested in exploring the old kitchen. Fenrir has managed to get as far as the sun room before we’ve caught her. In fact, going for the sun room door is the one sure way to get her out from under the couch in the old kitchen, or from behind the old wood cookstove, where we can’t reach her. I try to watch out for her before opening the door into the old kitchen, but it’s like she’s waiting for me. Many times, the moment that door opens, she appears out of nowhere and is in the old kitchen before I have a chance to react in any way. Knowing we’ll try to get her out, she immediately hides in places we can’t reach her. Sometimes, the only way I can catch her is to go into the sun room and leave the door open behind me. She always goes for it, and I can usually manage to catch her rather quickly after that.

When we win the lottery ;-) and can finally renovate this place, one thing I would want to keep and repair is all the doors between sections of the house, and add even more in places. None of this “open concept” stuff. :-D We once lived in a house that had doors between every room, including at the bottom of the stairs to the second level. I ended up really appreciating being able to so easily close off portions of the house, partly because it was even worse to heat than this one, and closing up rooms helped keep things warmer. We stopped using the second level completely in the winter, closed off the door at the stairs and added a draft blocker at the bottom to stop the waves of cold coming down. It was an awesome house, but yikes!

Ah, memories… :-D

Before I headed outside this morning, I saw deer at the feeding station. The usual doe and her little one, looking for any seeds the birds hadn’t finished off yet. I wasn’t at all quiet while setting food and water out for the cats, so it was a surprise when I came around the corner with feed and scared off two deer! I think they’ve gotten used to the routine, though. After putting feed out, I went back inside, and already could see the doe through the living room window. I quickly hung my coat, then went to watch when I saw the little one come bounding joyfully along the edge of the spruce grove to join Mom.

These two come back several times a day, now. Every once in a while we’ll see a buck but, so far, that’s about it. Later in the season, I expect we’ll start to see more deer coming by and will probably start to leave out more feed again.

I’ve left the remains of a sunflower there, because the birds like to perch on it. :-)

The 14 day forecast is interesting. Of course, it changes pretty much every time I check it, but the middle of the month is looking like it’s going to be quite mild! For all the cold we’ve been having in the last little while, this winter is shaping up to me so much nicer than the last couple of years, and a lot more like our 30 year average than the unusual cold we had during those polar vortexes.

We have been working towards being set up and ready, should we be stuck at home for weeks again, but this winter is looking like we’ll actually be able to get out and about like normal. No frozen vehicles! Hopefully, this will run through February, too. The way things are going, I’m hoping to pick up some (not-frozen) soil and maybe even a warming mat, to get some seeds started in our aquarium greenhouse. People in my cold climate gardening groups have already started things like peppers and tomatoes, but I’m mostly looking to start onions and shallots, first.

Plus, we still have to decide what seedlings or root stock we’ll be ordering this month for planting in the spring. :-)

The Refarmer

The luffa is still trying! Plus, a bit of an update.

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Our temperatures have been lurching around quite a bit, lately! Last night, we dipped to 3C/37F, but our high of the day is supposed to reach 23C/73F!

I’m watching our garden beds closely and had a surprise. Not only is our Ozark Nest Egg gourd trying to produce more gourds, so are the luffa!

This is our first – and until now, only – luffa that was developing. It’s withering away, likely due to lack of pollination.

Right near it I found these.

Three new luffa starting to develop!

There are even some male flowers blooming, too. With so few pollinators around right now, I am thinking of pollinating them by hand, to give them a chance to actually mature, but it’s almost October. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but then, this year it looking like we will have a long, warm fall. I’d like to see how far along they get.

Though last night was chilly, we had no frost warnings, and when I headed out early this morning, to make sure the gate was open for the septic guy, I don’t think I saw any frost damage. I even was able to harvest a couple more zucchini this morning.

The overnight dip did make going to the outhouse during the night rather unpleasant! As I write this, we are still waiting on the septic guy to come by. All he could tell me when I called last night was that he thought he could make it in the morning.

Until the tank is emptied, there is no point in trying to unclog the pipe from the basement to the tank. So for now, we’re not only stuck using the outhouse, but doing things like using a bowl to wash up in, so the water can be dumped outside later, rather than going down the drain.

I’m really hoping we can get this is just a straightforward clearing of that pipe. Otherwise, we’ll be having to call a plumber, and that means dipping into funds set aside for other things. The good thing is, we have those funds if we need them, at least. :-/ As much of a pain as it can sometimes be, we’ve actually been able to set aside a bit of cash into a contingency fund. While we were living in the city, that was impossible to do. So I am thankful for that, at least!

The Re-Farmer

Giant puffballs done, and an unexpected autumn

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This morning was the day!

After sitting in water, with some molasses and a touch of salt, for a couple of days, our Giant Puffball spores were ready to be used to inoculate an area.

The instructions just said to pour over grass, but I did do two things to prepare the area we decided on. First, I pulled up the tall grass. There was barely any, and I didn’t try to pull them up by the roots or anything. Mostly, I figured I wanted the spores to be on the ground, not on tall blades of grass! :-D Then, I wet the area down with a hose. I wet down the morel bed, too, since the hose was handy.

When pouring the slurry out, I just swung the jug back and forth while walking backwards, paying more attention to spreading it evenly than to how large of an area I covered. It ended up being just enough to cover from end to end between the trees, from the morel box, down.

The temperatures have been just lovely, and we’re even getting passing showers, fairly regularly.

It’s been mild enough that, even with the first Ozark Nest Egg gourds withering away from last of pollination, new gourds are forming!

Looking at the long range forecast, I am just amazed.

We’re supposed to hit 28C/82F in a few days! With a humidex of 32C/90F! I thought we already seen our last days of temperatures this high. It’s the warm overnight temperatures that make the big difference, though. The app on my phone has long range forecasts to 24 days. Of course, the farther out they predict, the less accurate they can be, but even so, there are no frost nights predicted! It’s like we’re getting the weather we normally would have got, earlier in the year, instead of the drought. In fact, even with the few showers we’ve had, it looks like we still need to water the garden! We will still be getting beans and summer squash, more and more of the late sown peas are growing pods, more sunflowers are opening their seed heads, and even the Tennessee Dancing Gourd is producing more flowers and gourds. Of course, the beets and carrots are still growing. I was planning to leave those until around first frost, and it’s looking like they’ll have plenty of time to keep developing. The tomatoes are dying back, but still prolific, and the lettuce and surviving chard are thriving. I’m almost tempted to plant some more lettuces!

Almost.

This does mean we won’t be broadcasting the wildflower seed mixes we have for quite some time; they aren’t going to go out until there is no chance of germination.

What a strange year it has been!

The Re-Farmer