There are never enough soft cushions to lay on.
And there is never enough food for Dora, here asking “you gots foods for me?”
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario ducks
Once we got home it was still sunny enough to haul out the hydrogen alpha telescope and look at the sun some more.
Kim observing the Sun in HA
We are starting to get a little worried about the fall planted garlic crop. It is suppose to be frozen solid from now until the spring… and that is not happening. We are expecting little green plants to be poking up through the barley straw mulch any time now!
over 500 garlic plants with over 75 types
In addition to lettuce still growing in the cold frame, we managed to find some fresh catnip still growing around the house.
Dora was very happy!
Fresh catnip
This is our first winter with a wood pellet stove.
It has not been doing too badly at all: a lot less heavy wood carrying frequency; most of it water as it was not as well dried; a lot less bugs and critters coming in with the wood; a lot less trail of wood debris in from the wood shed to the stacking area; a lot less mold and mildew coming in affecting both us and the animals; heat that can be generated all night long instead of just 2 or 3 hours before the old wood fire would go out; almost instant heat when turned on, much faster than the 1-2 hours the old wood fire would take; no more too-hot when the old wood fire really got going and you start to worry about chimney fires.
Please note the accessories that we have:
the fireplace set of shovel, poker and brush left over from the old wood stove
a new, smaller, ash bucket
two cleaning tools
and a GREAT BIG HEAT SINK in the front.
You can feel the heat flow drop when she arrives and settles in.
You get the idea that we might have cats? You are correct!
Where do they all learn about this behaviour with humans? Some two week course they take online while we are out of the house?
Cats are also supposed to be stealthy. Why does it sound like a herd of wild horses running up and down and up and down the hallway at 5am?
Pumpkin, for all of his 17 years, still manages to jump the deck fence and goes exploring in the back yard, all the while, inside complaining about how old and stiff he is.
Dora does not understand why she gets into trouble jumping the fence.. especially when she is chasing and catching those evil chipmunks that keep digging up the flowerbeds.
Peyton is the only one not yet caught.. we suspect she is learning from the others that jumping the fence is a fun thing to do… maybe she is just smarter than the others and hasn’t been caught.
This is an example of a cat learning how to parallel park:
One morning at the office window, two of the cats were glued to the window.. even though it was -25C outside and the windows was very cold.
This is what they were looking at.. a small rabbit digging around in the flower bed out front.
Typically this rabbit hangs around the bird feeder, picking up seeds off the ground, but also has been getting into the brown grasses and flowers in the bed.
This is Peyton, our other new adoptee. She is a little harder to get a glamour shot of. She does have a good camouflage pattern on her and often blends into the background, sight unseen 🙂
A picture of Dora, approaching her 2nd year with us (2011 December), in an almost unheard of “quiet time”. She is by far the most active of the bunch.
This was a test of the Canon A2400IS camera with the new CHDK software running it. Later that night we went out to do some astrophotography with it, and they turned out not bad at all.
What do you do on a 22 deg C Sunday?
– till up a vegetable bed, pull out the grass roots, add 5 bags of sheep compost (1 bag/50ft^2)
– reinforce a deer fence post; reinforce a post supporting a metal garden gate
– remove an outside sink and stand
– move two rain barrels and barrel stands (now all 3 are 26″ off the ground for water pressure), connect one up to the downspout with a sediment bucket.
– finish adding another coarse of garden ties to the last of the vegetable raised beds – now all are at least 12″ deep/high
– planted onion hairs, onion seeds, overwintered onions, leeks and shallots
– more yard cleanup
– hooked up the water system (no more freezing temperatures!) to the various garden beds and greenhouse.
– get a sunburn because the wide brimmed hat was forgotten
– get the cat down from the roof
– move 3 planters around the wine grape garden
It was busy and tiring and just a taste of things to come.
As of early this morning (Monday Oct 29, 2012)
Hurricane Sandy was predicted to pass right over our house, but now the latest prediction shown (Monday afternoon) has it passing to our east. It looks like the storm is predicted to slow down by a few hours and that gives it time to move eastward.
We’ve prepared the best we can.
All small objects around the yard have been picked up, deck items have been put down, inside or all together, downspouts cleaned out.
Inside we have 80L+ of stored water, lots of firewood for heating and cooking, a backup propane cooking stove and lots of birdseed… err catfood.
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
We have a few outbuildings that we are concerned about but what more can you do. They are locked down, have some extra ropes on them.
The latest news is that the winds will be from the northeast and then later on from the north.
From the Kingston Humane Society in 1994 July, Ginger and her sister Tasha were wonderful companions for many years.
Tasha left after 13 years, Ginger after 18.
Two more mice have met their ends.
The most recent last night was seen making great squeaking noises as Dora bounced it around the house with Peyton looking on from the side. This was one ejected from the house.
The previous ones was a week ago and occurred when we were not home. This was the bad one… Dora decided to try it out as a nutritional supplement and it was in pieces scattered about the floor. She had a sore tummy to boot and was very slow the rest of the day.
The cats got a new climbing stand built on Sunday plus access to another window to look out, all in one.
We built the climbing stand (pictures will follow), out of a 2’x2′ heavy & thick piece of wood for the base, added a 5′ tall 4×4 cedar post glued and screwed in. Then we added four platforms, each 1’x2′, at 13″ intervals from the ground, leaving an 8″ jump at the top to the window sill.
Each platform was notched and attached around the 4×4 post and screwed in with a brace underneath.
Each platform also had carpet stapled to it.
So far only one uses it regularly but the others are looking at it.