winter woes

I love our truck!

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Today is relatively mild, as far as the temperature goes. It’s only -8C/-18F as I write this. The windchill, however is at -24C/-11F and honestly, I think around our house, it’s actually feeling colder than that!

The historical records for today are pretty wild! Our record high was 23C/73F set in 2012, but the record low for today is -26C/-15F, set in 1974.

I well remember my childhood winters here in the 70’s. There’s a reason the “experts” were saying we were heading into a new ice age back then! It was brutal! Of course, as a child, I didn’t know any different and thought it was normal. It wasn’t.

Our earlier long range forecasts that said we were going to have highs above freezing through the rest of March and into April have been completely reversed. Now they say we’re going to have highs below freezing for at least another 10 days. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for that bloody wind!!!

One thing about the cold and wind; we’ve got more yard cats!

I got a different number, every time I tried to do a head count, but the range was still between 31 and 33 cats! And at least one – Sad Face – was “missing”. I haven’t seen more than 30 cats here in weeks.

I was happy to note that the matt of burrs in Adam’s fur seems to be almost all gone. At least the ones on her hip and side. The burrs on the tip of her tail are still there. I’m also still keeping an eye out of a printer baby with an injured back leg, but have seen no sign of a limping cat, so that’s good.

Which reminds me; I reached out to the Cat Lady about the Wolfman and his eye, sending her a picture. It was a long shot, but I was hoping donations to her rescue might be available, as we have zero vet budget right now. I wasn’t surprised when she said there was none left; she’s taking care of the rescues out of pocket again. However, she was able to give me advice, as she’s dealt with this before. She agrees with my husband, that it’s most likely a scratch from another cat. She asked if we still had some Metacam left, which we do, so we’ll be dosing him for three days. It’ll get the swelling down and reduce pain, and help it heal faster. We had to weigh him, first, to calculate the dosage.

He did not like that. 😄

Along with the Metacam, we’ll continue using eyedrops and carefully dabbing around the eye. She described the treatment regimen they did with their cat that had an eye like this. With their cat, it took about a month to heal completely – but it also turned out to have a piece of claw stuck under a lid that finally came out on its own! I don’t think we’ve got anything like that, but it’s hard to see. They ended up self treating because, when she called the vet about it, treatment would have cost at least $600. As it is right now, she’s making weekly payments to cover their bill with her usual clinic, because they still owe them thousands! They have a good working relationship with this clinic. This is the one that wouldn’t give up on Cabbages (which is now saving the lives of other cats), and a couple of other sick kittens from our place the Cat Lady took. I’ve actually lost track of how many cats they now have permanently that came from us! There’s at least four or five.

Which reminds me; they have an area prepared for Ginger. He’ll stay with them and get the standard vet care before being officially put up for adoption. He’s going to be sharing space with a very chill cat with no eyes (also up for adoption), so bullying will not be a problem! Right now, it’s just a matter of scheduling a day to connect.

I did get out today, and I am so very happy about it! I was able to get the truck into the yard, so we could load it up and make a dump run. There was just one drifted area I wasn’t sure about, but the snow is hard packed enough that the truck just climbed right over! We could never have done that with the van. It would have broken something! The truck made it through, easily.

Once the truck was by the house, the girls took care of loading it while I opened the gate, penguin walking the whole way. I had just asked them to bring the bags out, expecting to load the box myself, but by the time I shuffled my way back to non-ice covered paths, the girls were just closing up the tailgate!

I did have to laugh when I opened it up to unload it at the dump. Getting back out of the yard had sent almost all the bags flying to the cab end of the box.

There’s a reason we keep a long handled garden cultivator tool in the cab all the time! Very handy, to pull things closer.

I had considered continuing on to the town North of us after going to the dump, after my husband had confirmed they have the bio drain maintenance stuff that finally got our toilet going again, in stock. After unloading the garbage, though, I decided against the trip. The winds were even worse than at home! At least it was blowing in the right direction, so the bags I was tossing into the pit were being blown further in, rather than back at me! On the way home, I did make a stop at the post office, though, and picked up a few grocery items while I was there. There are a few other things we need to get, along with refilling the big water jugs, but that will wait until I meet with the Cat Lady in the smaller city. Next week, we’ll be doing our stock up shopping for April, so I don’t want to be making any special trips if I can avoid it.

I’m just glad we were finally able to made that dump run. We were way overdue! I am SO appreciating this truck!!! It’s such a good beast.

We should name it. Our previous van was named Sleipner. This truck needs a good, muscular name. 😂

The Re-Farmer

ps: Oh, my goodness! I just noticed the date and realized – today is the first day of spring! Winter is officially over!

Well. On the calendar, at least!

The aftermath

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My older daughter has a birthday this month. We don’t typically celebrate birthdays on the day, but kinda spread things out for at least a week. One of the things we like to do is have the birthday person choose where to order food from as a treat, and my daughter chose Pizza Hut. The closest one is in the smaller city, and of course, there is no such thing as delivery out here. The plan was to do that yesterday. With the high winds, we discussed postponing it, but in the end, I decided the drive would be okay. We did take our van instead of my mother’s car, though; for all its problems, my mother’s car is a fair weather vehicle, and while it has new all season tires, the van has good winter tires. When I got to the garage, though, I found that the winds had managed to blow open one of the doors to where my mother’s car is parked! That door had a tire on a rim leaning against it to hold it closed, and the tired had been knocked a couple of feet away!

My younger daughter came along with a birthday shopping list, so we left early for our scheduled pick up time. I figured we could stop at a grocery store along the way, making for less time for the food to get cold after picking it up. The drive is normally about 45 minutes, and we left about half an hour earlier than necessary.

Which turned out to be a wise decision.

The winds were coming from almost directly the south, so for the first leg of the trip, it was like driving into a wall, but except for one section on a curve, where the highway was running more east/west, the highway was clear. Then we reached the town my mother lives in, where we turn east on another highway.

My daughter tried to get a picture for me.

Don’t let this picture fool you. The camera on my phone cleans things up quite a lot. In reality, we could barely see the road. It was all white. Every now and then, we’d pass a shelterbelt around a farm house and the road would suddenly be clear for a short while, then back to blowing snow. It was actually quite mild out – just a few degrees below freezing – which meant the dark road surface on these clear spots got warm enough for the edges of snow to be melting. The van was being buffeted the whole way, and it was a fight for the entire stretch of road, until we reached another highway and were travelling south again. That highway was mostly clear, though some places were starting to have buildups of snow. The plows were out, at least.

After a while, we had to turn east again, and that section of road was even worse. In places, there was enough snow kicked up by the winds that it looked like a distant fog, half engulfing any stands of trees.

The last leg of the trip was a stretch of highway weaving south and east, so it was a mix of clear and covered. Once inside the city, the winds were blocked and there was no blowing snow at all! It was such slow going the entire way, we didn’t have time to stop at the grocery store first, and headed straight for our scheduled pick up. We made it just in time, too!

Once the hot food was picked up, my daughter and I stopped at the grocery store on the way out, and then it was time for the drive home.

Since emptying out the van, with the expectation of trading it in, we took out all our music CDs and still haven’t returned them, so we had the radio on a classical music station, instead. Normally, we don’t listen to radio, but this time, I’m glad we did. When the news and weather was on, there was a lot of talk about road conditions and road closures. Things were certainly a lot more severe, the further south things got, and the big city was being hit hard.

Considering what we drove into on the way home, that must have been really crazy! The winds had picked up, and were blowing even more snow, but it was the ice under it that really made things iffy. We were driving much, much slower and, at one point, the wind started blowing the van around, and we were fishtailing on the ice. Thankfully, there was no oncoming traffic, and I got the van under control again without being blown into the ditch. It was very touch and go for a while! This happened a couple more times along the way, but not as bad as that first one. If I had known it would be this bad on the east/west roads, we would have done this another day!

It took us quite a bit longer to get home than the drive out, as we had to drive so much slower. Once we were travelling north, conditions were much better and I was even able to drive highway speeds, while the wind was at our back. The only east/west road we drove that was good, was the last two miles of gravel road to our place!

Yes, the food was mostly cold by the time we got home, but that’s okay!

As the evening wore on, the road conditions worsened. Parts of the Trans Canada Highway were closed, as was the entire ring road around the bigger city, as well as the major east/west highways leading into the city, while many other roads and highways had travel advisories. People were told to stay home, and there were many reports of vehicles in ditches and other issues.

I’d seen forecasts showing that the winds would continue for several days, but this morning, there was no wind at all! While doing my rounds, there were a few things that had been blown around to pick up, and once the snow is going, there’s going to be a lot of fallen branches to clean up! The tarp covering the shed with a hole in its roof was flapping around a lot in the wind, and there are now friction tears, but it did hold. It’s unfortunate that we had not been able to secure the sides of the tarp, even if it was just in a few places, but it still handled the conditions far better than I feared, based on how much I saw the wind tearing at it.

When I got to the sun room to start my morning rounds by feeding the outside cats, I discovered the insulation covering the cracked window about the counter shelf had been pulled down, along with the boards and even a 5 gallon bucket that had been helping to hold it in place. Things are mild enough now that I just set the sheets aside. Other things were knocked about, and I soon realized why.

The outer door into the sun room had been blown closed!

So we had a bunch of cats trapped in the sun room over night, while others were trapped outside! There was still some food and water in the sun room but, outside, all the kibble trays were empty, and even the outside heated water bowl had somehow been knocked right out of the water bowl shelter, and was dangling upside down by its cord. We built that shelter with a board across the front specifically to prevent the bowls from being easily pushed out. It’s possible the bowl was knocked out by a deer, not the cats, considering the fresh tracks I could see in the snow!

The cats were very excited about my getting that door open again!

We’re supposed to have a nice warm day today, so hopefully the ice on the highways will melt away and dry off. Tomorrow, my daughter has her eye exam. It’s supposed to get a little bit chillier, and the winds are supposed to be back. Hopefully, not as bad as it was yesterday, but at least we’ll only have one short stretch of east/wet highway to be concerned about.

Spring may be on the way, but winter’s not done with us, yet!

The Re-Farmer

Not so many this morning

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All day yesterday, and throughout the night, my weather apps kept telling me it was snow.

This morning, they were telling me it was raining.

It was snowing when I went to do my morning rounds. :-D

Okay, “snowing” might be a bit of an overstatement. There were a few flakes floating around, and that was it.

There were very few cats out this morning! I spotted only six at first, though little by little, I did see more.

There were also four deer hanging out in the yard. Before I headed outside, I could see one of them digging in the unfinished low raised bed, trying to get at more frozen kitchen scraps in the trench.

I doubled the feed this morning. It’s still just a tiny amount, shared with the birds, but with winter refusing to leave, every little bit helps.

I find it interesting that we seem to have watched a new herd get created. At first, we had the doe and her youngling coming by. The piebald would come along, and if the other two were there, it would chase them away. Then the three of them just sort of made their piece and are now always together. More recently, a lone deer started coming by more often. The trio would chase it away if they crossed paths, but it kept coming back. Now, all four of them are staying together!

After I finished my rounds and was starting to head it, I spotted a cat near the shrine that looked like it might have been Potato Beetle. It was sitting on the snow with one leg up, but that’s something all the cats do when they’re sitting on the snow. I came over to see, and was happy to find that yes, Potato Beetle had come back! He was aiming for the kibble tray under the shrine but, much to my surprise, it was already empty! So grabbed a bit more kibble and topped it up. That was enough for Potato to come closer, and I was able to pick him up and check on his leg. It is looking very good.

Then I started walking towards the house and he started to freak out, so I put him down. He does NOT want to be put back into the sun room again! At least not right now. So I let him be and went inside.

But only for about a minute. Then I had to throw my boots back on and chase the deer away from the kibble tray under the shrine! The deer actually seem to prefer the cat kibble over the sunflower seeds and oats in the feed. I’m thinking the higher fat and protein content is something they are really craving right now.

I was being secretly watched. :-D

As I write this, our weather alerts have changed to a rainfall warning. It’s expected to be next to nothing in our area, but to the south of us, they’re saying possibly 30-40mm/1-1.5in before Sunday, when it’s supposed to turn to snow.

*sigh*

I think I’ll go through some of my seeds and dig out the ones with the longest days to maturity, and see if there are any good to start indoors now. Garden therapy!

The Re-Farmer

God Bless good neighbours!

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There is most definitely a plus to not closing our gate anymore, to avoid having it freeze shut again.

Our angel with a front end loader showed up yesterday! What a beautiful sight!

With the temperatures, no one went out while he was still here, but I did make sure to send a note to the renter to pass on our thanks. Like many others, they were pretty snowed in, too. Having that front end loader sure makes a difference, though! Their kids were home; school was cancelled, and the buses haven’t been running for days anyhow, due to icy road conditions. Plus a shortage of drivers. I don’t know if that’s because the drivers are snowed in at their homes, too, or if they just don’t have as many employed right now. Could well be both!

The driver even made the area in front of our person gate wider. I think he could see, by the tracks in the snow from the tow truck, that the area in front is used, and where space is needed for turning around.

The cats are loving it! After the front end loader was done, I could see on the security camera, cats running around and playing all over the plowed areas! They were having a blast!

This morning, after feeding the critters, I started a bit of shoveling, including clearing part of the snow ridge in front of the people gate, where we unload the van. I couldn’t stay out for too long. I hadn’t put toe warmers on this morning, and my boots that are supposed to be rated to -40C/-40F… aren’t. :-D The girls and I will head out later in the day to clear the paths. I’m just so grateful that the big job is done. Yes, we couldn’t have gotten out with my mother’s car, but this makes life so much easier!

The kitties were looking pretty miserable when they came out for kibble! As you can see by the nose in the window, they were eager to get back into shelter, once they had their fill of kibble and warm water! I do wish I’d been able to catch the death glare I was getting from Caramel, who is drinking water in the above photo. I think she is going to be a very happy camper, once we manage to catch her and she gets placed into a forever home – indoors!

This is what the temperature was like shortly after I got back inside – and still is now, as I am writing this! The -28C/-18F is bang on, but I’m happy to say we weren’t getting that -36C/-33F wind chill. The wind may be coming from the south, which we normally have issues with, it’s only 9 kmh/5 1/2 mph, and what trees and outbuildings we have on the south side are enough to reduce that. Still, it wasn’t a good morning to be out there for very long, that’s for sure!

The 14 day forecast is looking pretty good, though more snow is on the way. On Sunday – tomorrow – we’re expecting less than 5cm/2in, but on Tuesday, they’re predicting another 5-10cm/2-4in, then another 2-4cm/1-2in starting late Thursday and into Friday. I know so many people who are even more snowed in than we have been. Many have the equipment to dig their way out, but they’re running out of room for all the piled up snow! It takes my old brother, who lives closer to the city, 4 hours to clear his driveway with his snow blower. My sister’s husband uses their tractor and it takes him 2 hours, though for where they are, it’s generally a longer wait for their roads to be plowed, so it only gets them so far.

I’m liking the sight of warmer temperatures in the forecast, but the warmer weather also tends to bring more moisture – and more snow!

As much as we needed that precipitation, we have enough, now. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Warming… up?

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Well, we are on track to warm up quite a bit, by this afternoon. Depending on which weather app I use, we’re either supposed to reach -7C/19F, or -5C/23F.

The problem is the wind. There is a “Blowing Snow Advisory” out right now. As I write this, we are at -14C/7F with a wind chill of -25C/-13F

Or -13C/9F with a wind chill of -28C/-18F, if I go by my phone’s app.

The wind is from the south-southwest, which means it was a bit brutal when I did my morning rounds. Not as bad as yesterday, thankfully.

The wind swirls around the cat area so much, I actually had to empty all the kibble trays of snow. You can see some of the snow that drifted in front of the kibble house. It completely covered even the heated water bowl, forming a layer of ice and snow across the top, about an inch above the liquid water!

Our winter sowing experiment is getting buried!

I checked the driveway – especially the end of the driveway – and we can still get out. I even started the van and let it run for a while, just to make sure it would start. We need to go into town this afternoon – a trip we’ve already put off too many times.

I’m keeping an eye on a local highway status group, and this morning there were a lot of people saying to stay home if you can, because of the drifting, and there are even sections of highways that are closed, but it all seems to be happening closer to the city, and they were posted hours ago. Others that are farther north, and closer to us, have said the highways are completely clear. However, none have said anything about the road we need to take.

It should be fine, but it would be nice to know in advance, one way or the other! I’m just glad we can get out. Not everyone has been able to dig out of the storm, yet.

The Re-Farmer

Having a rough time!

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I was able to head out and get both vehicles running for a while. It’s a good thing I trust my brother so much, or I would never have left the engines running for any length of time, from the noises I was hearing. The van stalled right away, but did eventually start.

Since I was leaving them to run – with the garage doors wide open – for some time, I took the opportunity to finally switch the memory cards on the trail cams. I had to take the new camera inside and switch the batteries to warm ones to get it working again. The batteries from when I last did this were fine, once they reached room temperature, so I’ll be switching the same two sets of batteries back and forth, as needed.

When I first came outside, my brother’s dog was here. He really wanted to play with the cats! Nostrildamus would have nothing to do with him. When I was heading out to the trail cams, he was in the driveway, trying to get Junk Pile to play with him.

Junk Pile hissed and scratched at him, and he was the one to back away, but he didn’t go far. She stood her ground, but I think it was more because she was so cold and didn’t want to move!

I haven’t been able to get a good look at her for some time, so I was dismayed to see that one of her eyes is leaking and stuck mostly shut. There is enough fluid that it was leaking down the side of her nose. She has the same plaintive meow as her boy, Nostrildamus!

After I shut down the vehicles (both sounded much better by then; the van was still making more noise that usual, but the engine was warmed up, while my mother’s car sounded almost normal, but the engine warmed up only half as much in the same time frame) and closed up the garage doors, I tried to see if Junk Pile would let me come close.

She did not, but in getting away from me, I managed to steer her towards the garage, when she squeezed under the door. There, she would no longer be sitting in the snow, or bothered by a big dog!

We have to build new doors for the side of the garage my mother’s car is in. When we do, I’m hoping to put windows near the bottom, to provide sun spots and passive solar heat for the cats. :-)

When checking the files from the trail cams, I found that the new camera had stopped recording after about a day and a half, but the old camera kept recording the whole time. The next time I have a chance, I will switch the cameras, and have the new one on the post in full sunlight. I think that might be enough to keep it going. The old camera used to be where the new one is now, before our very first camera finally died, so I already know it has no issues in the shaded location.

All sorts of things are having a rough time in this cold, both mechanical and biological!

The Re-Farmer

Really?

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We weren’t supposed to be getting even COLDER!

This is what we were at, when I would normally be heading outside to feed the critters. -40C/F At least the “real feel” was a bit warmer, though when I did go outside, there was enough of a wind to prove that wrong!

As I write this, several hours later, my phone’s app has us at -33C (-27F) with no wind chill. The app on my desktop has us at -36C (-33F) with a wind chill of -44C (-47F). Thankfully, what wind we do have is from the North, and our door faces South. As long as we’re sheltered by the south, it’s not too bad, but once I went around to the feeding station, what a different story! Even a slight breeze is brutal at these temperatures.

That cats were out and about, though! Mostly to sit in the sun, curled up like Nosy over here.

Last night, I was prepping a turkey for the crock pot (I’ve never done that before; I hope it turned out!) and made sure to keep some bits as a treat for the outside cats. It was probably about 10:30-11pm when I popped out to scatter it among the food bowls in the kibble house. I could see through the window of the cat house, the red light on the timer showing that the ceramic heat bulb was on. I also saw some white fur moving around, so there was at least one cat actually using it last night. When I came out this morning, I saw Junk Pile in there, and I think Nutmeg was in there, too. Ginger and Nosy were out by the house, and even Butterscotch popped up from somewhere while I was tending to the food and water. I saw Creamsicle Jr, too – he ran off just before I could catch him in the above photo. I was later able to see that his eye is looking almost normal again.

They’re active, they’re eating and drinking, and it’s too cold to fight, so they’re good.

We’ve been seeing a pair of deer showing up at the feeding station during the day, so I’m hoping we’ve got some good pictures. I think it’s a mom and her baby, though they are very close to the same size. Their fur is so dense right now! I know we have deer coming by during the night, but it’s nice to actually see them.

Meanwhile…

We got the call from our doctor this morning. After going over my husband’s file and the pain clinic recommendations, etc., he’s changing things up slowly over the next few months. So he’s got a change in one medication for this month, it’ll be changed again for the next two months, and then another medication the pain clinic talked about will be added. There will be no change to the opioids right now. All of this has already been faxed to the pharmacy, though he suggested we call them later, just to make sure they got it. They would be ready to pick up today, if we could get there.

As it is, I’m going to see if I can get my mother’s car going and try to make a trip to the post office/general store this afternoon. We’re almost out of cat food. :-(

The Re-Farmer

Let’s try that again…

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So, today isn’t turning out as planned.

It was supposed to warm up today. Technically, I suppose it did. When I headed out to do my rounds in the morning, it was only about -19C/-2F; much warmer than the past few days.

The wind chill was -33C/-27F, according to the weather apps.

That’s a lie.

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Bitter cold, and sad news

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The cold snap that has been working its way across the prairies has hit us.

It was -31C/-23F, with a wind chill of -39C/-38F this morning. At the time I write this, we have warmed up to -29C/-20F with a wind chill of -31C/-23F. The weather alert on my app is still saying wind chills may reach between -40C/F to -50C/-58F. !!!

Hard to believe that, tomorrow, we’re supposed to warm up to -9C/15F!

Heading out to feed the critters meant layering up. Two pairs of socks in my new, rated to -40C, winter boots. Two pairs of pants. A t-shirt under my sweatshirt. A hoodie – hood up – under my down filled park – also hood up! and double layered insulated gloves.

I was rather impressed when I saw this under the door.

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The Aftermath

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It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and after the blizzard that hit us, we have so much to be thankful for! Parts of the province are described as looking like they were hit by a tornado, and I just learned that my sister was without power for 2 days. Thankfully, they have a wood stove and fireplace for cooking and heat, as well as a generator.

When I drove my daughter to work on the Thursday, things were still looking good. By the time we reached town, it was starting to snow, but it was on the way home that I drove into the beginnings of the storm, locally.

When it was safe to do so, I pulled over to get a picture.

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