weather

Another damp morning

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It rained steadily through most of yesterday, and continues today. No downpours, but constant enough that we’re getting quite a bit of standing water in the usual places.

Also, the rain is light enough that the cats don’t mind being out and about in it!

I think I counted 30 or 31 this morning, but they were milling around too quickly. Then something startled them and they exploded in all directions, at which point, I gave up trying! 😄 Sad Face was in the sunroom when I first came out, and I was even able to pet him briefly while he was outside.

I haven’t seen Judgement in a while. Hopefully, he’s just out exploring his territory and will be back soon. I also didn’t see Broccoli. She would be somewhere with her babies. Hopefully, there will still be kibble left when she does finally come to eat!

While doing my rounds, I was joined by Syndol. While petting him, I spotted what looked like blood in a patch of white fur. He let me check, and it looks like he got into a fight and a tuft of fur was pulled out at his neck.

While checking that out, I also found a wood tick, right next to the bald patch!

Syndol was patient about letting me get a grip on it and pulling it out. Not easy, in that long fur!

While going through the maple grove I paused at an old willow that is half dead. Something about it looked… different. I’m not entirely sure what the change was, but it was enough to make me grab hold of it and give it a shake.

At which point, I brought the camera out…

I was easily able to pull that dead trunk down with one hand. I honestly don’t know how it stayed up for so long!

This was basically two willow trunks against each other, and the other trunk also has some rot on it. I’m not sure if it’ll keep going for a few more years, of if it will come down, too. It leans quite a bit already. With willow, though, you just never know. The big willow nearby has been slowly dying for years, and it’s center, where it splits off into several trunks, is fully rotted out. Yet, year after year, it keeps going!

I could see more snow crocus flower buds this morning, and the tulips are growing nicely. I’m seeing more garlic coming up, too, which is a bit of a relief. I was starting to think most of them hadn’t survived the winter.

Once again, it’s too wet and muddy to do the outside work I need to do. This afternoon, I’ll be making a trip to the post office. Yes, more packages for my husband to pick up, but also one to return. He had picked up a video card for his desktop computer, in hopes of getting it working again.

He had the tower open to work on it, when a cat came in and knocked it to the floor, and onto his foot. No injury, thankfully, but … well … he now has a big, expensive paperweight.

He is not a happy camper.

The video card is not much use now. I’m not sure he even finished getting it out of the packaging.

*sigh*

As much as we need this rain, it’s really doing a number on the gravel roads. The road running past our driveway isn’t too bad. It gets a bit more maintenance, since it gets a lot more heavy traffic than some of the other side roads. A lot of dump trucks, tractors and heavy equipment use this road to get to the fields to the south of us, including our own that is rented out. I was talking to the guy who delivers our prescriptions, and he was telling me some of the gravel roads he has to take are in really bad shape. Some of them even have grass growing on them! Nothing can really be done about it right now, though. If the roads are too wet and muddy, the graders can’t go down them without causing more damage.

The main gravel road that runs past us, which we take to go to town, is constructed for heavy traffic, and is considerably wider than any of the side roads, but there are still patches of it that break up, every year. It’s actually in worse shape than the section of road that goes past our driveway!

All in all, we’re doing pretty good, while getting some much needed moisture. Which will continue for a couple more days! When I looked previously, we were supposed to get a break over the weekend, then a couple more days rain. Now, that rain is expected to hit us over the weekend, instead. We’ve got some decidedly cool days in the upcoming week, too. [update: the forecast has already changed! Now we’re not supposed to get rain over the weekend again. LOL]

Meanwhile, my brother is coming out tomorrow, to set up my mother’s air conditioner. I’ll get joining him to help out – and enjoy his company. She won’t be needing to use in for a while! Still, it’s good to get that done now.

There is no hurry at all in getting the AC they gave us set up. We’ve got the living room set up for transplants right now, so the outlet is blocked. Once we no longer have seedlings in the living room, we can move the shelves away again, and hook it up. It should be interesting to see how much of a difference it will make in the household, come summertime. When he set it up for us last year, the summer was almost over, so it didn’t get much use before being set aside for the winter. I suspect the living room is going to become a favourite place to hang out this summer! Especially for my husband. I would not be at all surprised if he ends up linking his laptop to the TV to use. His south facing bedroom gets pretty warm in the summer, and he does not tolerate heat well, at all.

We’ll find out in about a month or so!

I’m still wrapping my brain around the idea that we’re in May already. This year is just flying by.

The Re-Farmer

This day feels longer than it should! 😁

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First, the cuteness.

We haven’t named this one, but that pattern over his nose makes me think of Nosencrantz, every time I see him!

Nosencratnz is doing well at her new home, btw. 😊

I counted 32 yard cats this morning. Remarkably, while I was petting a bunch of the males as they ate on the cat house roof, Broccoli not only allowed me to pet her, but even pushed her way through the boys to get better pets! Even Caramel let me pet her, in between trying to bite my hand.

Yesterday evening, I got a call from my mother, and arranged for me to come over today to help her with her shopping. This morning, however, I got another call from her. She had a rough night, and wanted me to decide for her, whether she should go to the clinic in her town. At least she wasn’t talking about going to the emergency! That would have been in the nearer city. After talking to her for a bit, it seems that she had issues with heartburn again, but my mother can’t quite understand what that means, and always tries to blame whatever food the TV or magazines tell her is bad. We talked for a while and I reminded her of the list of foods that can make it worse. I remember she had it taped to a cupboard door in her kitchen at some point, but I have no idea if it’s still there. She keeps insisting on eating foods that are known to cause heart burn, though, then blames other foods that don’t, but that she has decided are bad for her. It’s really hard to talk to her about this stuff, because she can’t understand so much, including basic anatomy. We have tried to explain things to her, even showing her diagrams or looking up medical information, but if it doesn’t match what she had decided it is, she doesn’t accept it and promptly forgets it.

One thing that did seem to finally get through was talking about processed meats. She keeps trying to say she needs to eat less meat. If it weren’t for the meat we’ve been bringing over for her, she’d be eating nothing but garlic sausage and deli chicken. At least she eats eggs! I spent some time talking about how, as we get older, it’s important for us to eat high quality protein, and some of the ingredients in processed meats might be triggering her heartburn. She seemed to actually hear me for a change.

Still, what she wanted was for me to decide it I “wanted” to take her to the doctor or not. I told her no, that’s her decision, and we’ll see how she feels when I got there!

So I left I bit earlier and picked up Chinese food for lunch, which she actually did eat. As we were talking on the phone, she’d mentioned going there for onion rings (she still thinks they serve cat meat, because someone said something, and she saw a thing on the news …. ). Onions are among the things she shouldn’t be eating. Deep fried foods are also among the things she shouldn’t be eating!

She hadn’t had breakfast, though, so she was happy for the meal!

There was one unfortunate surprise, though.

When I reached her door, I saw some things on her walker, which she parks next to it. There was a jar wrapped in paper two, a carton of eggs, and two carrots.

Under it was a piece of paper.

I immediately recognized our vandal’s handwriting.

It seems he’d swung by her place, left the stuff, but never knocked or anything like that. Who knows how long it was sitting there.

I brought the stuff inside and ended up reading the letter out to her. It was all the usual stuff about the farm and me and my brother, some invented accusations, and how she’s going against the wishes of my late father and GOD!!! Complete with underlines. Then he threw in a comment about going to the doctor. From past calls he’d made to her, before his number was finally blocked, he told her he was dying, but didn’t say from what. He still seems to think she can give him the farm somehow? Either way, it’s clear he still thinks the property should go to him, but 1) he already has a farm and 2) if he’s dying, what’s he going to do with it, anyhow? It’s not like he’s got any kids to leave it to.

Our theory is, he’d simply sell it. It’s the money he’s really interested in.

The paper towel wrapped jar turned out to be soup in what looked like a small mayonnaise jar – at least it wasn’t a pickled herring jar this time! My mother was so disgusted after hearing what was in the letter, she didn’t want any of it. At least not anything that he cooked (it was full of onions and chunks of sausage, anyhow!).

Instead, we enjoyed our Chinese food and had a good conversation. She was feeling a lot better once she was up and out of bed, and I talked some more about how sleeping more upright can be a help (another thing that’s on the list I made for her, along with food choices). It would be really helpful for her to have a hospital bed, like my husband – it would even be better for her and her knees – but no. She doesn’t want to “bother anyone”. ?? In our province, our home care service department can provide a hospital bed as a “loan” – that way, if anything breaks or whatever, they simply replace it. The company they get these from sends a couple of people over to bring it in, assemble it and test it out. Easy peasy. But no. She even has a chair my brother bought for her that can be reclined almost flat and would be good to use as a sleep chair, but she won’t do that, either.

As we were talking about how being upright and moving around obviously helped out, she then suggested that if she hadn’t gotten out of bed this morning, she probably would have died.

*sigh*

She was clearly feeling better, but not enough to run errands, so we went over her list. She writes her stuff out in a mix of English, Polish or English with Polish spelling. Then she makes little doodles of what they are, beside each item.

I was very confused when I saw “soup” followed by an =, a drawing of a jar, another =, then a drawing of a cup.

It turns out, she meant “soap”.

For dishes.

We had a good laugh over that!

One thing I did take note of was that she included “turkey or chicken”, but not sliced, with a doodle of a deli chicken.

I can’t even wrap my mind around how she spelled “sliced” enough to remember it!

It’s been a while, and a longer list than usual, so I was hitting both the pharmacy and the grocery store to get it all. Which is fine by me.

My only problem is, I think I messed up with my new shoes. Wearing thinner socks has helped, but only with one foot. My other foot could have used a half size bigger. Not that there was any half sizes to choose from. Normally, I’d be confident that the shoe would eventually stretch out a bit, but I’m not sure how far the steel toe extends. I might be hooped. I won’t return them. I’m not going to take back shoes I’ve already worn in the mud. Ah, well. Live and learn! I’ll work it out, but gosh, it got pretty painful by the time I was done! The main thing is, my mother is now well stocked again, and I was even able to get her a variety of fresh meat in single person size packages, instead of the processed meats she usually gets!

As I was heading home, I remembered to stop at a hardware store. I got metal corner supports to put on the corners of our raised bed covers.

In other garden related things, I got a notification today that our T&T Seeds order of potatoes got shipped today, and should arrive tomorrow!

These are the varieties we ordered; 1kg of Purple Caribe and 2kg of German Butterball.

I wasn’t expecting them to be shipped so soon! The space we will be planting them was still mostly covered with snow, this morning. It was warm enough today that it’s almost all gone, but the ground is probably still quite frozen. Of course, they don’t need to be planted right away; they can be stored for a little while, at least, but perishables like this get shipped based on the local growing zone, which means they really should be going into the ground soon!

The potatoes are not the only things that are on the way. My husband ordered a hand crank for my crossbow. I have not been able to use it for a frustrating reason. I’m too short to cock the bow, using the rope cocking aid that came with it. Basically, it’s got a pair of hooks you place on the string, with a matching pair of handles. With the bow secured with a foot, you bend over the stock, pull the sting with your arms, then straighten up. Once upright, the string should be far enough along to lock in place.

I’m too short.

I even tried shortening the cords on the ropes of the cocking aid, but there’s only so far you can do that without compromising the gear. My husband can cock it but, with his back injury, he can only do it a few times before it becomes too painful.

The hard part has been finding a hand crank that will fit the model of crossbow I have. There was one made for it, but it was discontinued shortly after I bought mine! It took a couple of years, but my husband finally found one that is supposed to work on my model – and was affordable!

So that should arrive soon.

If Fed Ex can figure out the address.

It might just end up at the store the post office is in. We shall see!

I look forward to finally being able to practice again!

Anyhow.

That’s a few of the things going on today.

Tomorrow, the septic guy comes in to replace the pill switch!

I’m so excited! 😄😄😄

Besides that, I think the ground is thawed out enough that I can continue working on that bed along the chain link fence. I was able to pry out the last chunk of broken sidewalk block that was under the one end, but that was it. We hit 12C/54F today, so that should have helped a lot. We’ll see how tomorrow is. We’re expected to have a high of 9C/48F, with possible rain.

Rain would be good. I even drove through rain on my way home from my mother’s today!

Maybe not so good if it comes while the septic guy is working on our tank, though!

We shall see.

Lots to do outside, as things keep warming up, and that now includes preparing the potato patch!

The Re-Farmer

Come on, Spring! You can do it!

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*sigh*

When I saw all those long range forecasts saying we’d be getting consistent highs above freezing, I knew things would likely be different, but… really?

This is what it was like when I did my morning rounds; -18C/~0F, with a wind chill of -26C/-15F! That’s January temperatures!

This time of year, we all tend to be tired of the cold and snow – even after as mild a winter as we had this year – but to have such warm weather melting everything all through February, and a forecast saying it would continue, to the complete opposite is downright depressing!

The yard cats don’t seem to mind it, though!

I actually got to pet Broccoli this morning! I snuck a pet as she walked in front of me, after taking this picture, and she actually stopped eating to enjoy shoulder scritches for a little while. So far, that’s still as much as she will allow. Junk Pile, who’s licking her chops enthusiastically here, had been eating with her back to me, and I was able to rest my hand on her back. Just for about half a second, before she realized what was happening and got all startled, then moved to where she is in the photo. Altogether, I think I counted maybe 23 cats, but they were running around so much, I’m just not sure!

Yesterday, I made a quick garden tour video for the first day of spring. While I was recording inside the big aquarium greenhouse, I didn’t see that we had new tomato sprouts until I uploaded the video to my desktop. This morning there are more, and the ones that the video picked up are already much larger. So far, it’s just the middle row, plus one in another row, that are germinating.

The other seed trays, however, show no activity. These are the ones in the new seed starting trays with their grow lights, and are set above the heat vent. I think it might still be too cold for them, though. I think what I’ll do, is shift the San Marzano tomatoes off the heat mat, to the other side of the tank. The new trays, with the peppers and other tomatoes, can go on the heat mat, along with the Butterfly Flower tray. I’ll remove the domes on the new trays, since they won’t be needed in the aquarium greenhouse. That will free up the LED grow lights to put over the bin with bell peppers and thyme, to give them a bit of a boost.

*Shuffleshuffleshuffle*

A bit of garden therapy is good for the soul!

The Re-Farmer

Brrr

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Even Adam thinks so.

She’s just a big, round ball of fluff, disgusted with this wind.

I’m glad I did that burn when I did, because yesterday, in spite of the temperature being a mild -1C/30F, we were getting winds of around 45kph/28mph, and our wind chill was -17C/1F. As I write this now, we’re at -5C/23F, but the 34kph/21mph winds have it feeling like -21C/-6F.

It’s a good thing the winds are coming from the north-northeast. When I came out to feed the yard cats this morning, I found the sunroom doors wide open. I’d chased at least 4 racoons out last night, and heard others in the kibble house, before tying the doors off again, but somehow, the buggers unsecured the doors anyhow. At least they didn’t trash the sunroom too much, and we do make sure to feed the cats early enough in the evening that they will have had their fill before the trash pandas ate their food!

We had plans to meet up with the Cat Lady this weekend, but I wasn’t sure when. Now it looks like I’ll be doing errands with my mother tomorrow (Sunday), so that’s not an option. While I do need to go into town to refill a couple of water jugs, I’m seriously considering not heading out. The wind on its own is not a problem. We did have some rain yesterday which, along with the driveway and roads covered with snowmelt, means things are awfully slippery out there. Just going down the driveway while doing my morning rounds mean doing the penguin walk to avoid landing on my a$$. The highways are probably okay, but the gravel roads will be nasty. Maybe I’ll leave it for tomorrow, and do it in my mother’s town, instead.

I think today is a good day to stay indoors and catch up on my crochet.

The Re-Farmer

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

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

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!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

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