As much as I appreciate that we are slowly warming up and getting some really nice days, the weather whiplash of spring seems almost like an insult. 😄
With things warm enough to be melting all over, today’s high of -7C/19F (which we are already at) with a wind chill of -21C/-6F feels so much colder. A few weeks ago, these temperatures felt like spring!
While doing my morning rounds today, little Magda decided to follow me around. She kept getting under my feet, so I picked her up. She doesn’t like to be carried and ended up on my shoulders – which she didn’t like, either! – but she was cold and shivering, and actually allowed me to tuck her into my jacket.
There’s a weather system blowing from West to East, almost straight across the country, bringing snow and high winds. The snow is supposed to start hitting us withing the next half hour or so, and continue for several hours. Tonight’s low is supposed to drop to -22C/-8F, which means the winds will probably make it feel colder than -30C/-22F
This see-sawing of temperatures means our usual explosion of pot holes on the roads over the next few weeks! While we’re just getting a bit of snow today, it’s not unusual to have at least one big blizzard in March or April.
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -7C/19F again, with a warmer overnight low. I’ll be helping my mother with grocery shopping tomorrow, then do some of our own errands as well. After that, we’ll be getting a few days above freezing, then dropping down again, for more weather whiplash!
Winter and spring will be battling out for a few more weeks, yet!
You’d think things would be warming up by sunrise, but nooooo. This has been the coldest part of the day of late. -30C/-22F with a wind chill of -37C/-35F Normally, I would have been heading out at this time, but decided to wait. I knew the outside cats still had plenty of food, even if they don’t like eating frozen kibble, and they would still have water in at least some, if not all, of their heated water bowls.
It says the extreme cold warning is until Monday at 6am. My desktop’s weather app has the warning to 7:01 this evening. I would say my phone’s app is the more accurate one!
As I write this, we are coming up on 11am, and have managed to warm up to -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -28C/-18F Thankfully, the sky is clear and sunny, so we’ve got some passive solar heat happening in the sun room and the isolation shelter. We’re supposed to get a bit of snow early this evening, though.
The cats – especially the younger ones – have been absolutely thrilled they can go into the isolation shelter again. That top level is just crowded with kitties. I haven’t been able to do a head count, though. It seems to be mostly the more feral ones, and they panic and run away if I get too close. I don’t want them to leave their cuddle pile in the warm shelter, so I stay away, unless I’m actually putting in more food and water. That is the one place where the food bowl is completely empty when I get to it! I might start scooping frozen kibble from the outside bowls and trays to put into there, so it’ll thaw out enough for them to eat it.
Patience definitely looks like he is losing patience with this cold! Of all the cats, though, he probably has the biggest, thickest coat of winter fur of them all. Even more than Adam…
Adam is a physically larger cat than Patience but, with his winter fur, Patience looks bigger than she does!
Adam was sitting loafed like this when I first came out with the kibble. I’ve taken to scattering kibble in various spots on the platform and other raised areas, where I know they will actually eat it before it freezes. I put some right in front of her in the cat bed, and she barely even backed away from the scoop. She didn’t move from this spot until was about to go inside. I started petting Colin, right in front of her. I’d hoped I could sneak a pet while petting Colin, but as he kept pushing closer in front of her, it was just too much, and she finally got up and moved to the other cat bed.
Kohl, meanwhile, still seems to be holding a grudge against me! A trip to the vet and two weeks in isolation – is it a month ago now? – and she still rarely lets me touch her. She does like to eat kibble on this shelf, though, and that was enough for me to get at least a few pets in. Her fur is getting pretty matted. I am hoping we can get her comfortable enough with us again, that we can do something about that. Probably not until spring, though. We don’t want to be combing out her undercoat and cutting away mats, in this cold!
Magda peeking from behind her is so adorable!
When we got Kohl and Cat 1 fixed (yeah… I couldn’t come up with a name), we did not give them collars. They are not yet their adult sizes. Without knowing if we’d be able to handle them again, I didn’t want to take a chance of them growing bigger and the collars starting to bother them. I remember when our elderly Freya first showed up on our balcony in the city. She had a collar, so we assumed she was someone’s pet that was allowed outside. One day, she showed up with the collar gone – and a rather large spot on her neck where the fur was rubbed off, and a wound visible. Thank God it was a breakaway collar! She’d been on her own long enough to outgrow the collar, and it was harming her. I don’t want that to happen to these two.
Kohl might still let me pet her once in a while, but Cat 1 won’t come near us at all anymore. Getting collars on them when they are bigger, so show at a glance that they’ve been fixed, is not going to be easy!
Sadness. 😢
Today, our expected high is -22C/-8F, and our low is expected to be -30C/-22F, and tomorrow is expected to be the same. On Tuesday, we’re supposed to start warming up again. Thankfully, we don’t need to go anywhere. I might head to the post office tomorrow to pick up some parcels, but there is nothing essential in, so I will probably just wait until Tuesday afternoon!
I am definitely in the mood to hibernate as much as possible!
Just before I was able to take this picture, I watched as Freya slithered her way into the cat bed, on top of Beep Beep. They spend a lot of time, snuggled together in there!
Butterscotch being where she is on my bed is a big deal. She has expanded her range by about three feet to be there. Butterscotch, one of the originals, still refuses to leave my office/bedroom/craft room. In the mornings, I have to chase most of the cats out and close the door so she has a chance to use the litter. There have been times I’ve seen her go for it (she will only use the one under my computer table), and stopped what I was doing to stand guard. Out of nowhere, one of several cats will teleport from somewhere and start stalking, if not outright attacking, her when she tries to use the litter. Most of the time, though, she will stuff herself into the shelf above my pillow to snarl and growl at other cats, even if they’re just walking by some distance away and completely ignoring her.
Beep Beep, on the other hand, has no issues getting along with the other cats (except Butterscotch; they don’t like each other). She has become downright kittenish in her behaviour since moving indoors. You’d never know that she (and Butterscotch) is more than 10 years old. Probably closer to 15, but we just don’t know their exact ages.
Freya, on the other hand, showed up on our balcony in the city in 2010, and we estimate she was barely a year old at the time. She is really showing her age these days. We make sure there is softened kibble for her in a tray in my room. It’s easier for her to eat out of a shallow tray than a deeper bowl. Usually, the kibble is softened with plain water. When we do their afternoon cat soup, I make it extra thin and use it to soften the kibble for her, too. She spends most of her time in my room, these days, snuggled up and sleeping. At night, she will sometimes come over to cuddle with me, too. Every day that she is still with us is appreciated.
As I was outside this morning, doing the morning rounds after giving the outside cats their food and warm water, I was really thankful I don’t need to go anywhere today! There was almost no wind, but it was cold enough to be quite painful. The gate cam is having issues. It is fully exposed so, while it does get plenty of sun to both warm it up and power the solar charged batteries, it’s too cold for the batteries. While changing the memory card yesterday, the display would shut itself off almost immediately. Today, it stayed up long enough for me to read “low battery”. The solar batteries will charge up during the day, but the back up regular batteries were too frozen to take over powering the camera. I haven’t checked the files yet to see how much it manage to capture during the day. The sign game is more shade, as it’s under a tree, but it has enough to shelter it that the camera’s batteries didn’t completely freeze.
As I write this, we’re coming up on noon and have warmed up to -26C/-15F We don’t have a wind chill right now, but the region is under a several cold warning. Tonight’s low is expected to drop to -30C/-22F, but the wind chills are expected to drop it to -40C/F
Looking at the long range forecast, it seems we’ve got about another week of these temperatures before things start warming up a bit. By the end of February, we’re even supposed to get highs above freezing. I don’t hold much stock to that, though. It wasn’t all that long ago when the long range forecasts were saying we’d be warming up and even going above freezing right now.
My husband popped by earlier asking if I could go to the post office to pick up a parcel.
I told him we were at -27C/-17F.
He said, tomorrow, then. 😂
The down side is, I have to take the truck in to the garage tomorrow morning. I have a 9:30am drop off time. At the time I will need to start heading out, we are expected to still be at -29C/-20F Thankfully, the truck is in a garage and plugged in, but it’s still going to be wicked cold. There is no heat in the garage. I’m told there used to be a kerosene heater in there, for when my late brother was working on my parents’ vehicles, but that’s among the things that disappeared in the two years it was empty before we moved in.
Tomorrow we are finally getting that slow leak in the tire fixed. Hopefully, that will also get rid of the “service tire monitoring system” warning I get, every time I start the truck. Next month, we will take it in for the engine flush, sensor replacement and oil change, which should get rid of the check engine light and get our oil pressure gauge working again. I really wish we had to budget to do that first! As it is, I’ve just messaged to ask if they could replace one of our windshield wipers as well. I could do it myself, but wouldn’t be able to get a new blade for a while, and sure as heck don’t want to be figuring out how to replace it while standing on a stool to be able to see and reach, in the bitter cold!
Then, on Thursday, my daughter and I are taking Fluffy to the vet for a follow up appointment, though at least that appointment is for later in the day. This will be Fluffy’s last day in the isolation shelter, and we will be able to open it up to the other cats again. My daughter is coming with me so she can stay in the truck with the carrier while I go into the Walmart to take care of the overcharge from a couple weeks ago, and pick up a few things.
The daytime highs over the next while won’t be too bad, but the overnight lows are expected to be brutal, and last through most of the mornings.
For now, I’m going to enjoy staying at home. I’m not looking forward to more driving over the next couple of days! I’m really hoping things warm up faster. I have to take my mother to the eye clinic in the city on the 19th. It’s going to be hard enough on her without having to also deal with the cold!
I keep wanting to basically hibernate over January and February, and avoid going out as much as possible. Somehow, it just never seems to work out, but this year has got to be the worst for appointments and errands in a February since we have been living here! I’m just thankful we have the truck and that it handles the cold as well as it does. Our first couple of winters, we got hit with far worse temperatures and our van and my mother’s car froze.
I know it could be worse, but gosh, I’m getting really tired of winter.
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!
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.
It’s past 11pm as I write this, and we are at -30C/-22F, and the wind chill is at -43C/-45F!
I’ve actually snagged a small heater to use in my bedroom/office, because the furnace just can’t keep up. Especially in my north facing, log walled room with the last drafty window that my mother refused to have replaced when all the others were done, before we moved here.
Time to curl up in bed and stay warm with about a dozen cats or so!
We have another bitterly cold day today. As I write this, at almost 10:30am, we have warmed up a bit and are now at -28C/-18F with a wind chill of -38C/-36F. The extreme cold warnings we were under just ended, minutes ago.
My daughter accompanied me as I did my morning rounds, just in case I had another fall. We did the short rounds, due to the cold, but I did make sure to check on the ejector.
My brother redid the heat tape so that it is now wrapped around the elbow and thoroughly secured with electric tape. We don’t want this thing to freeze again! With the septic pump now working at full flow, thanks to that rag no longer being stuck in the back valve, this should not be a concern anyhow, but water was still filling the stack pipe more than it should. I wasn’t about to undo everything to check it it still was.
As for the icicle hanging off the extender my brother added to the elbow, I broke that off then felt around inside. The ice ended just inside the extender. The heat tape around the elbow was doing its job, and it was clear. The next time the pump goes off, the water will melt away and remaining ice as it blasts by. The water is usually warmer, too, since the bulk of the water that goes into the tank is from hot showers.
The pump itself is back to taking about 5 minutes to empty the tank. Which makes sense. It’s now pumping through about 300+ feet of pipe before hitting the venturi valve, then being pushed up a 3/4 inch discharge pipe.
Oh! I just checked the weather again. The extreme cold warning is back. Wind chills in the range of -40C to -45C (-40F to -49F) are expected, particularly in areas to the south of us. We are somewhat protected by the lake effect where we are.
Another good day to stay inside, as much as possible.
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 