Well, things are looking good for our area, weather wise. The snow system seems to mostly be skirting around us. We’ve had some snow, and are expected to get more later today, but nothing like other areas are getting. As I write this, we are at -14C/7F, instead of the high of -18C/1F that had been forecast, the last time I checked the weather, yesterday. The wind chill is -23C/-9F, but it’s coming from a direction we are mostly sheltered from.
After the running around I did yesterday, though, I’m happy to have a day to stay home. Tomorrow, I’ll be heading out again for a meeting with the doctor about my mother.
I do have a bit of cuteness to share with you today!
This is Tin Whistle (named for her distinctive meowing habit). A few weeks ago, she suddenly decided to attach herself to my husband.
Often, literally.
She is all over him. He can’t do anything, without her trying to be on him in some way. I’ve tried to rescue him by taking her away, so he could at least go to the bathroom, but she is soon back in his arms. More than a few times, I’d go past his doorway and find him stuck with her in one or both arms, watching videos on his computer, because he can’t do anything else. He used to try and get her to leave, but has pretty much given up.
Instead, he started putting her into his vest, and they’ve come to a truce! She will curl up in his vest and sleep for hours, and his arms are free to use.
Tin Whistle is one of Decimus’ babies from a couple years ago. We discovered her newborn litter, just hours, at most, from birth, in the shelf shelter. We’d never been able to socialize Decimus, but when we put her kittens into a carrier, she went in with them, and we brought them inside. There, we were finally able to de-matt her (her entire back was one big matt of fur) and socialize her. Along with her four kittens – Tin Whistle, Clarence, Shadow in the Dark and Mitsy – she was willing to become a wetnurse for Ghosty and The Wolfman.
The Cat Lady was able to adopt Decimus out when the babies were weaned, along with one of the outside cats, to be mousers on a farm. They were so friendly, however, they both ended up as indoor cats permanently!
Sadly, we were never able to adopt out the kittens.
With how Tin Whistle has bonded to my husband, I’m not sure we even could adopt her out anymore!
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!
This is actually warmed up a bit. When I checked during the night, it was -28C/-18F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F As I write this, we are at -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F
I did my short rounds this morning! I did make sure to check the ejector, though. The splash area is open, and the heat tape is warm, so that’s all working. I’ve been talking to my brother about what I’m seeing when the pump runs. It does take longer to empty that tank (almost 7 minutes, instead of about 5), and the speed of inflow, while consistent, with the water level in the filter no longer draining, is slower as well. Since this happens while the pump is running, that suggests the possibility of something in the venturi valve. The only way to know for sure is to pull it up and check, which we won’t do until the spring or summer.
The first thing I did this morning was tend to the outside cats, of course, and check on the isolation shelter. I’d noticed something about it last night, when looking out the kitchen window. There is a “ceiling” of rigid insulation under the roof. One full width piece with a notch cut out for the extension cord, and the other cut narrower to fill in the remaining space. That narrower piece was pushed back, and I could actually see through the clear roof panels into the shelter from the kitchen window! Not enough to tell where the cats where, but I shouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.
When I checked the shelter this morning, Midnight was gone. Only Fluffy was inside.
Some things were knocked about that I had to straighten up. While she eyeballed the open window as I did that, then refilled the food bowls, she would not go near me. When I came back to do the water, she was on the second level, but jumped down while I did the water and hid in a corner by the litter box below.
No sign of Midnight, anywhere. He’s probably going to make strange for a while, but I’m sure he’ll come back for food and warmth soon.
I didn’t like the idea of Fluffy being along in there, though, so when I saw The Grink, I decided to try and catch her (I think she’s a she). The Grink is one of the tinies and is among the crowd that regularly used the isolation shelter to hang out in. She’s not feral, but not socialized, either. When I did manage to touch her, she let me pet her and pick her up, and was more than happy to be put into the isolation shelter!
As I was finishing up and checked again, The Grink was in the cat bed in front of the heat lamp, grooming. It took a while to spot Fluffy, tucked into a shadowed corner.
Hopefully, over the next two weeks, she’ll warm up to us.
Last of all, I made sure to give them a can of cat food, which The Grink eagerly came over for. Fluffy was still hiding, but there are two food bowls in there now, so I hope she creeps over to at least one of them.
We’re expected to be a lot warmer tomorrow, but also to have snow all day, through to the day after. “Light snow showers” the forecast calls it. So I really don’t want to drive in that with the Costco shopping.
I was planning to visit my mother before heading to the city, but I think I will make an extra trip, first. Talking to my brother last night, I mentioned we’ll need to go into her apartment to make sure there’s no food going bad or anything. They had managed to visit her the other night, and remembered that we need to bring in clothes for her! She’s still wearing the same clothes as when she was went in for her appointment and ended up in the ER. They told me, she is even sleeping in her clothes with her shoes one (her feet get cold). I would have expected them to have given her a gown or something!
So I think I will go to her apartment first. She has had a bag – just a reusable grocery bag – set up as a “hospital bag”. She’s been complaining about her health and wanting to go to the hospital for a long time (and would get very upset when she’d go to the ER, they couldn’t find anything wrong and sent her home), so she had this bag for clothes and necessities. Hopefully, she still had that, and I’ll be able to find it, and make sure it does have everything she would need.
Then I’ll go to the hospital to visit with her before going to the city.
In the end, though, I’ll see how the truck runs when I got to warm it up before I leave. It should be fine, but I’m so flipping paranoid about breakdowns these days. I do have an emergency kit in the truck, and we have CAA, but still… this is not the kind of weather to take chances in.
We shall see how things work out!
Time to bundle up again start warming up the truck, and do another OBDII scan while I’m at it!
The heat bulb in the sun room has been turning on and off over the past few days. My guess was the cats knocked it about a bit while jumping on and off the platform it’s hanging from. I’d give it a bit of a wiggle, and the bulb would turn on again.
This morning, I gave the cats their kibble and warm water, as usual. Then, as I was going back into the sun room, I realized the bulb was off again. It was on when I went past, maybe a minute or two earlier.
So I did the usual wiggle, and it didn’t turn on. I turned the switch off, checked the lamp and the shade (which was loose), then turned it back on.
The metal lamp shade has a small round opening near the neck. When I switched the light back on, I thought I saw something through the hole, so I turned it on and off again. Was that a flicker of light at the bottom of the filament, visible through the opening?
So I shut it off and took the bulb completely out. The filament looked perfectly fine. I decided to screw it back in and try again.
I ended up putting back one of the ceramic bulbs that these warmer heat bulbs replaced. It’s heating up as it should, though it’s only 150w, instead of 250w, so it’s not going to be as cozy for the kitties.
The temperatures have warmed up, though. As I write this, we’ve been at 1C/34F for some time, and it’s expected to stay above freezing for a few more hours. Oh! I just double checked the weather app on my desktop, and it now says our high is supposed to reach 2C/36F today! We’re also supposed to get a mix of rain and snow later today, too.
Looks like the driveway isn’t going to be done today, either. Aside from the winds that picked up again, the warmth will make the snow sticky. From experience, I know how quickly that jams up the auger.
The driveway is passable, though, so not clearing it won’t be an issue. The area in the yard that I cleared instead was more of an issue, as the truck was having difficulty in the turn around areas.
With the warmer temperatures, the less warm ceramic bulb in the sun room should be okay. We’ll have to make sure to get 250w versions for next winter, though. I prefer them to the ones that are actual lights for this. The only down side is, if they stop working, we can’t tell without actually checking them for heat.
We should also pick up a few more smoke detectors. One for the isolation shelter and one for the sun room, at the very least!
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!
Well, we did reach our high of -17C/1F today – at about 6-7am. By the time I headed outside to do my morning rounds, it was down to -19C/-2F, which isn’t too bad, except the wind chill was -32C/-26F It was coming from the north- northeast today, so the house acted as a wind break for the most part. I made a point of checking the ejector this morning, where I found myself getting hit by the wind, full blast.
Not fun.
Ejector is fine, though. I checked the heat tape and could feel warmth.
As I write this, it’s just past 5pm, and we’ve cooled down to -20C/-4F, but the wind chill is still -32C/-26F
This afternoon, I made sure to check on the truck, get it running for a while, then hooking up the OBDII to do a scan. The same sensor code is coming up; nothing else, so that’s good.
While letting the engine run and warm up, I took advantage of the sunshine and relative shelter from the wind and shoveled out the paths. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but the winds blew drifts into all the paths, with some not even visible anymore. Just flat snow. The kitties will be much happier, now that they can get around the yard more easily!
The first one is the fluffy girl that we can sometimes pet while she is eating. She lost her first litter last year. Unfortunately, she is now in heat. Brussel is being left alone, so I have to assume she’s pregnant, but the boys are all over this one.
This is a really bad time of year for a cat to go into heat. They’d both be having kittens at the end of February or so. Chances of survival are pretty much nil.
I’m really hoping we can catch her, or Brussel, for the spay next week. We’re booked for one male and one female, and I don’t expect to have any problems catching the males. They are far less feral than the ladies.
If you click through to the next photo, you can see another of our fluffy beauties; one of last year’s kittens. Totally feral. No idea if it’s male or female. We have at least one, maybe two, more fluffy ones like that that are completely unsocialized, and won’t go near us. I had to zoom in quite a bit to get that picture!
I had a chance to talk to the Cat Lady today. Yesterday, I’d connected with someone in a feral and stray cat group on FB. I normally am not active on there, after being burned by similar groups in the past. Someone was offering donated cat food, though, so I contacted her. I told her outright that we’ve been having difficult getting help, and only one rescue has been willing to help us. We messaged each other privately, and ended up arranging to connect when I’m in the smaller city, waiting for the spay and neuter to be done. I will be meeting the Cat Lady that day, too.
After, I let the Cat Lady now that I’d connected with someone about possible food donations. Today, she phoned me and asked if it was a particular person by name.
It was the same person.
She then warned me to watch out for her. She says, her heart may be in the right place, but she has… issues. Issues that have resulted in her calling the provincial vet on people she had been “helping”, which then resulted in a whole lot of cats being euthanized instead of TS/NR’d. More alarming is that she has been sending cats out of province with “brokers”. The cats get picked up by people in unmarked white vans, and are never heard from again. She apparently is full convinced that these “brokers” are adopting the cats out to good homes in the other province – a province that is just as overwhelmed with cats as rescues are out here (we’ve lived in that province a couple of times, over the years). The Cat Lady suspects the cats are actually going to a lab, based on her own observations before leaving the big rescue she had been connected with when I first met her.
Basically, she said that if we can get help with cat food, getting cats fixed or getting them adopted, that could be fine, but not to give any personal information, not to say where we live, and especially not to send pictures, as those will get shared all over online without our permission. It’s people like this woman, and the rescues she’s connected with, that have resulted in the Cat Lady backing away from her own rescue, and basically working with just a couple of people like us, and that’s it.
As she was telling me this, I remembered some of her past stories she’d told me, about how and why she left the big rescue. No names were mentioned, so I hadn’t known this person was one of the people she’d had issues with.
Well, we just have to be careful, which I try to be, anyhow.
One of the things that came up was how many cats we’re feeding right now. With how cold it’s been, I haven’t done head counts in a long time. The last time I did, I think I counted about 36, or in that range.
Today was nice enough that I tried to do a head count after doing their evening food and water. I counted “only” 23! That’s a huge drop. I had been seeing as many as 15 crowded into the top of the isolation shelter. Today, I counted 5. Looking into the sun room from the bathroom, I’ve counted as many as 20 that I could see, most bunched together under the heat lamp. Today, I counted 8 in the sun room. The rest that I counted were running around outside.
Twenty three cats is still too many, and I know that there is likely cats that just hadn’t come to the house for food yet, but that’s still a big change.
Well, we’ll see how much they change again, as the weather warms up.
Tomorrow, we’re looking at a high of -15C/5F, which is supposed to happen at about the time my daughter and I will be at her doctor’s appointment. We will take advantage of the trip to pick up a few groceries and some more kibble. Our first stock up shopping trip is a week away, so we won’t be getting much.
Man, I really hope the long range forecast into February is somewhat accurate. I’m now seeing forecasts for highs of 8C/46F!
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!
Everything in red on the above weather map is under extreme cold warnings, defined as “extraordinary threat to life or property.” Orange is “severe”, which is defined as “significant threat to life or property”. Yellow is “moderate”, or “possible threat to life or property.” The few patches of blue are “mild” or “minimal to no known threat to life or property.”
The ongoing weather warning, particularly for the region to the south of us says wind chills could reach from -44C/-47F to -50C/-58F.
As I write this, coming up on noon, we have warmed up to -31C/-24F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29F.
I check the critter cam every now and then, and it amazes me how active the cats are in the sun room. Most, however, are in various groups, snuggled together in cat beds, under the heat lamp, or in the shelf beds at the window. I know others would be taking advantage of the warmth in the top level of the isolation shelter. It’s the ones that are too feral for any of those spaces that concern me. I see some running around on the driveway, the various paths dug out in the snow, or dashing along the sidewalk, to or from the house. They older cats have their thick winter fur, and the long haired cats are giant fluffy balls, rolling through the snow. It’s the littles that concern me, but they seem to know to stay close to the house and near the heat lamps. Still, when they do go out, I can see them doing this little dance with their paws, always having at least one paw raised up out of the snow. I wish they would just stay inside their various shelters!
Ah, well. We do the best we can for them, and just hope they take advantage of the warmth and shelter we provide for them.
If you can’t see the Instagram image, we were at -34C/-29F with a wind chill of -46C/-51F at 8:32am. It’s now just past 9am as I write this and, while my phone’s weather app hasn’t changed, the weather on my desktop days we’re at -35C/-31F and the wind chill is at -42C/-44F
The heated water bowl in the sun room was almost completely iced over at the top. The one in the water bowl shelter was heavily frosted over. Only the one in the isolation shelter had no frost on it – it’s still pretty warm with that heat lamp in there! – but the sliding window beside it was so frosted, I struggled to get it open. Somehow, the food bowl ended up knocked down to the bottom level. I wasn’t about to move the box shelter over the entrance to get it, so I found another container to put inside. It’s just a light plastic thing, and will probably get knocked down, too, but it will do for now.
On my local highway conditions group there is someone who posts a picture with road and weather conditions at the start of their commute, every morning. They live to the southeast of us. This morning, they posted at 6:45am, and reported the temperature at -37C/-35F They did not report the wind chill.
Today’s high is supposed to be -27C/-17F. Barely, and only for a brief period, before things start dropping for the night away. Tomorrow?
We’re looking at a high of -17C/1F. On the 23rd, when we are booked to bring a couple of cats in for spay and neuter, we’re expected to have a high of -13C/9F. On Friday, the 24th, the warmest day being forecast at the moment, we’re expecting to reach -6C/21F.
If the forecasts are even half correct, this will be the last bitterly cold day of the winter. After this, things will warm up and any cold periods expected will not be anywhere near this several. In fact, the long range forecast into February has us going as high as 6C/43F in the second week of February!
I’ll believe that, when I see it.
I really feel for anyone who has to commute in this, or work outdoors. This is one time where I’m glad we don’t have any livestock animals! Homesteaders I know are having a real struggle keeping their water from freezing. We simply don’t have what we need to care for animals in conditions like this – which is why we still don’t have chickens.
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!
The Re-Farmer 