“No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”
Abraham Lincoln
-31 when I woke. Promises of warmer weather fade with each day’s weather prediction. Like I said in a previous post, when Arctic air settles in, it stays. The extreme cold warning is refreshed and renewed every morning on the environment Canada website. The weather websites I look at, forward those same warnings. In the last two weeks or more they change daily, telling us when the cold will stop. Each day they are wrong.
For me it means more wood chopping. I am already into wood that should be for next winter. I will run out again in December. It also means that my injuries and symptoms are amplified by the cold weather and extra work needed to stay warm. Like I said many times, it needs doing, and I am the only one here who can chop. Haha I am the only one here. The cats can’t swing the axe.
They are pretty good at keeping me awake at night. Somehow one of them, the biggest one disappeared last night. She is the mean stray I took in when it started to get cold. If she spent the night outside she is dead. She might have gotten outside when I was doing ash yesterday. She left 6 kittens behind, they are all old enough. My Yakuza kittens terrorizing the house. They live in the fire room with the other males. I didn’t really like the stray she caused lots of problems, but I didn’t want her to die especially like that.
I just read about a 25-year-old Manitoba woman who died the same way. Car stuck in a snowbank she tried to walk out in the cold. Tragic. Pray for her family and If you want to help pay for the funeral there is a go funding page for that. If not just send a prayer that cost nothing but a little time. The news story is here. There seems to be discrepancies on different new sites, some say she had a cell phone with her, other say she left it at home. Some say she died 200 meters from her car, some say 3 kilometers. The man that found the car say the snow plow had been by there. So my question is why didn’t the snow plow driver report it. Some say she died a 15-minute walk to the next house. Something not right there.
As for my big old stray named cat, I still hope she will make it back alive and safe. I am hoping she got into my wood workshop, lots of places to hide, it is only -10 in there she could survive that. If not I will look for her when I go out to chop wood.
CAT-CAT AND PART OF HER CREW
Some shots taken from my back door.
Perhaps the hardest thing is to fight your own body, when it cries in defeat, begs us not to continue. Soon the subconscious follows and starts the whispers. “You don’t need to go out there. The fire is out anyways. You need to rest. You have enough wood.”
So I must be part automaton I get dressed for the cold as I have thousands of times before. First torn old snow pants, a hoodie, bandanna, snow boots with a few holes burned in drying too close to the fire, victims of red-hot ember escaping from the woodstove.
Then my old black jean jacket, the only item that looks new. A wool hat and my own birthday gift to me. A set of Bluetooth hearing protection that allows me to listen to tunes as I chop wood.
I grab the two steel bowls for melting snow a drop them outside. Grab a tall cup of sunflower seeds for the jays and chickadees. Then I wrestle the old rusted through wheelbarrow and my three Badly damaged splitting mauls (damaged by helpers 5 years ago). They still work for me because I rarely miss the mark. the steel head hits the logs not the handle.
Next snap a few pics, then.there is always a then. Pickup the meanest, the ugliest log I can find and split it. If that goes well, then the rest is easy.
20 minutes later, beard and mustache frozen, pain biting everywhere, I snap a pic of the load I just chopped. That pic is just a record for me. A badge of honour. Because I managed to do what needs doing for another day.
Axes loaded I trudge the 100 feet to the door push the load up the ramp into the house and collapse on the bench.
I swear the next event happened as I say. As my butt hit the bench the wood inside the wood stove ignited into flames the fire had been barely smouldering for hours, I put a load of cat litter in there that was too wet. Almost put the fire out completely.
I was relieved to see the flames.
I still had the two bowls outside to fill with snow to melt. I brought in 60 pounds of snow, put it on top of the stove. And started to get my snow gear off. I flopped down on the couch with cell phone in hand tried to write in here. Of course had to finish this up on the laptop. WordPress writing just doesn’t do well on the small screen.
No signs of the missing cat no footprints out in the snow, no signs of struggle with a predator nothing. Maybe it was the aliens I caught on film in another post. That will get you looking.
The end of the story. I had a thought that cat-cat locked herself in my daughter’s old bedroom. I have been meaning to take down the walls and dismantle that room and make my wood work shop bigger. I guess I will add that to my list.
Anyways I went up there to check and there she was, hungry as hell but alive. Cat-cat came back the very next day. Yup I did pray. God answered. Hey God still waiting for the lottery win and the date with Sheryl Crow 😀
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