weather

Gorgeous days, and another delay

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It is so beautiful out there right now!

And so is this beastly beast!

Rolando Moon was loving the hard packed snow on the sides of the driveway, while I was doing my morning rounds. In fact, all the cats were running around, enjoying the bright morning sunshine. I counted 26 this morning. The most I’ve seen for a while, now!

At the time I did my morning rounds, it was about -5C/23F, but felt much warmer. As I write this, shortly after 1pm, we’re at 2C/36F, and expected to reach a high of 5C/41F! Several degrees warmer than the forecast has been, for the past few days.

Even yesterday, with the forecast shifting and predicting a high of 2C/36F, we actually hit 4C/39F, and things were melting all over!

This morning, I took the time to widen a section of the driveway, to make it easier to turn into the garage when coming home. Coming back to the house I noticed the old market tent set up by the fire pit was partially collapsed. It’s broken on one side, so it doesn’t take much. Unfortunately, we haven’t dug any paths to the fire pit, so I was slogging through snow half way to my knees to get to it.

Getting the roof of the market tent, which is set up over the old picnic table and the folding table we made with parts and pieces we found in the barn and basement, clear was more difficult that I expected. Because of how warm it was yesterday, melted snow started pooling in the canvas roof, even leaking through and leaving icicles hanging on the inside. We have an old hoe with rounded edges that is safe to scrape the snow off without damaging the canvas. The handle is a steel pipe welded onto the hoe, so we use it in the fire pit, rather than the garden, so it was handy. I got as much snow off the tent roof as I could, then ducked underneath to try and knock it off from below, and lift the roof supports. One section turned out to be really, really heavy for some reason. That’s when I realized there was a big pool of water that had frozen overnight! I was able to scrape more snow off and break up the ice from the outside, until I could finally lift things from the inside.

We have been using the picnic table to cure onions and potatoes, setting them on old window screens I found in the barn and sheds. Short scrap boards were used to elevate the screen for more air circulation. All of that is still stored on the picnic table. The boards are just long enough that I could set them up on the picnic table and the folding table to prop up the tent roof supports. Unless they get knocked over by a cat or something (the cats do love the shelter the tent and tables provide!), they should keep the roof from collapsing again. The long range forecasts have changed again and now say that, a week from now, we will have highs below freezing again and, depending on which app I look at, we might get a bit more snow, too.

I got a message from the Cat Lady last night. The “problem cat” that the city shelter had asked her to take on is going to her today. The cat had all its teeth pulled and is now well enough for her to try and rehabilitate. Which means she couldn’t meet me to get our three today. We should be able to connect mid week, but that will depend on how things go with her new acquisition.

Since we were going to meet her half way, at the smaller city, I was going to take advantage of the trip to pick up a few things. Now that we were not going to be meeting her today, after all, my younger daughter and I went to town this morning, instead. Since I was in town anyhow, one of my stops was at the pharmacy. My husband had ordered prescription refills for delivery on Wednesday, so I thought I might be able to pick those up while there. They weren’t ready yet, so those will wait, but the other reason I was there was to get our printouts for our taxes, now that my husband’s second T4A is in. They were able to print mine out, but then needed permission them to be able to give me my husband’s printout. They gave me the form for him to fill out, and we’ll give it to the delivery guy when he comes. They will make sure my husband’s printouts are included in the bag with his refills.

I found out something interesting while doing this. Just about everyone that works there knows me well, by now, so when I come in, they know my husband’s name, and that I have a hyphenated name. Today, there was a new person helping me. I first asked about the refills, and gave her my husband’s name for her to look up. She confirmed having the right file using our postal address. After she confirmed the prescription wasn’t filled yet (since it didn’t need to be delivered for another 2 days), I said it could wait and mentioned the printouts.

In looking up my file, she didn’t know I had a different name. She started confirming my postal address, but the box number was one we hadn’t used since the last time we lived in this province, some 25 years ago! A pharmacist that knows our file well came by and helped her find the right file under my hyphenated name. While doing all this, I commented that the box number she had read out was one we used to have, many years ago. She noticed that the health care number was the same.

They had two files on me!

My old file had been using my non-hyphenated married name – something I would use when people didn’t have enough space to put in my full name. A common problem I had for many years! At some point, programmers changed software to fit longer names, because I no longer have that problem.

As I was leaving, they were in the process of merging my old and new accounts, so they will have just one account for me now.

To think, if it hadn’t been for a new person who didn’t know me as well, it wouldn’t have been discovered that there was a second file for me!

I may not have been able to get my husband’s refills early, nor get his tax printouts, but we at least got that discovered and fixed!

Today was such a nice day to be out and running errands. In the time it took me to write the above, we’ve already warmed up to 4C/39F – with a “feels like” of 7C/45F! That’s downright tropical for this time of year. 😄 Meanwhile, the thermometer in the sun room is reading 15C/59F!! There are cats played out in sun spots all over the room. 😄

On days like today, I can hardly wait for the snow to be gone, and finally getting outside and back to work! We’ve still got probably another month or two before we can do that, though!

I guess I’ll just enjoy it as it is. 😊

The Re-Farmer

I’m done, plus cat adoption update

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Last night’s storm turned out to be bigger than predicted. The 10-15cm/4-6in snowfall we were told to expect quickly changed to 10-20cm/4-8in The local highways group I’m on was getting constant updates from people describing terrible road conditions and many people in ditches, while advising others to not go out at all, if they didn’t have too. Highways were being closed all over the south half of our province, too.

The winds weren’t as bad, at least. Which meant that when I started digging out paths around the house, I didn’t have to break through several inches of hard packed snow at the top, first.

I did the main paths, clearing the main entry and front steps, the sun room doors, and around the cat shelters. The sidewalk from the main doors to the gate in the chain link fence, then on to the garage, got cleared wide enough for my husband’s walker to fit through. Once at the garage, I cleared enough to access and open the doors to where little Spewie is stored.

And that’s it. I’m done.

I traded chores with my daughter, instead. I did the litters and, as I write this, she’s bundling up to go out and clear the driveway. At least the temperatures are pretty mild. We’re at -8C/18F right now, and expected to warm up another degree for our high. We’ll warm up very slightly over the next couple of days, then are expected to make the jump to highs above freezing by Sunday. Which means all the paths we clear now will melt clear first.

I did see a plow on the main road last night, but I didn’t see if it had gone down our road or not. I sure hope it did!

One reason we wanted to make sure and clear the driveway today was so that we could head out to meet the Cat Lady with three adoptees tomorrow. Yesterday evening, though, I got a message from her. The “problem cat” that she agreed to take in return for them making space for our tripods, isn’t going to her quite yet. The cat turns out to have dental issues and will need all its teeth pulled! So she’s going to have two gummy cats soon. It’s a good thing the shelter caught it and is taking care of that. When they had to do it on the cat they adopted from us, it ended up costing $1800.

So she won’t be getting the cat right away, which means they should have space for our tripods some time next week. Ghosty is going to a different shelter, but she will collect all three of them at once.

Which turns out to be providential, considering the conditions right now! We’ll have our driveway clear, at least.

Based on the long range forecasts, winter has made its last gasp.

We’ll see if that holds out! It’s not unusual for us to have a blizzard around our anniversary, in the first week of April, but we are still being affected by the strong El Niño, so we might escape it this year.

I sure hope so. I want to see green growing things outside again!

The Re-Farmer

Got some digging done

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Well, it looks like we got a total of about 6 or 7 inches of snow by this morning. This may well be the largest single snowfall we’ve had this winter.

I didn’t get much of my usual morning rounds done. I started digging around the house a bit. Just enough to clear the doors, the space inside the cat shelter set up, and a path to the gate.

We’re going to have to break out little Spewie, but probably not until tomorrow. It’s just too windy out there!

The driveway is blown completely flat, and the winds have packed the snow down. Not a single tire track of shoveled path is visible anymore! We’ll have to dig out the doors just to access where snow blower is stored.

Thankfully, we don’t need to go anywhere, and we are well stocked, so there is no urgency to get things cleared. It does look like the road has been plowed, though, which is good.

As I write this, we’ve already reached our predicted high of -11C/12F. The wind chill brings it down to -27C/-17F. Tomorrow, we’re expecting a high of -13C/9F, but without the winds we’re getting today, so it’s going to feel much nicer. After that, we’re expected to start warming up and, a week from today, we’re supposed to start hitting highs above freezing, and staying above freezing.

As much as I appreciate the mild winter we’ve had, I’m looking forward to it being over!!

The Re-Farmer

Where did the day go?

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I feel like Ginger, right here.

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.

The Re-Farmer

Wow

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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.

What a gorgeous day!

The Re-Farmer

A disappearing day!

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I didn’t quite get to all I intended to do today.

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!

The Re-Farmer

If I fits…

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… I sits.

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.

Oops!)

Brrrr…

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

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!

The Re-Farmer

It’s a bit nippy out there

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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!

The Re-Farmer

First real tests

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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.

I am so glad we have this truck now!

I still would rather stay home, though!

The Re-Farmer