Crumbly Acres

 It's been quite cold. It is still cold. Saturday morning, the temperature was -12℃ at our house, with the high being -11 ℃! We were headed to an overnight low of -20℃!

Today, -19, with a high of -14 ℃.

I knew this cold spell was on its way. 

Its pretty and we finally saw some sun and blue sky.

Yes, I have first world problems. The news is distressing. One feel powerless. Let me tell you about my house work!

It's taken me three tries, an hour apiece, three days in a row. I had to put it down. I decided to try set up when it was inside, knowing the impending arctic freeze. I had my back up, the kids. My SIL (JL), is an Encryption Engineer, and my Go To guy for these things. He is amazing. Caitlin told me they were coming to visit on Dec. 26, but I really wanted to get this up and going. I needed a project. I like my hobbies.

It is motivating to have to get dressed to go outside to fetch trailcam SD cards. You just have to dress for the weather. 

Looking out at the sunshine, I figured this would be an opportune time, if only I could figure out the set up. I read and re-read the manual, went to the help section. I was doing something wrong, or not doing something right! 

Out with the old...

This is the old one, now busted.

In with the new!

This new one, a Black Friday sale, is a step up from the old. It's been sitting in a Canada Post warehouse for a month during the strike. It suddenly arrived.

One suggestion was to connect the camera to the router directly. That was the answer. Can you see me, chin in hand, pondering?! 

Finally, it recognized the new camera. I unplugged it from the router, and it was still working. YIPPPEEE!

I found it so frustrating. With my stomach issues, I'm not sure I was absorbing my antidepressants, and I was a mess. Sorry, hubby! 😱😳 He's very patient, and always asks 'have you taken your pills?' when I get grumpy.

I figured out how to attach it to the wall, once the cordless drill battery recharged. Sheesh. 

I researched the weather prediction and it told me that we were only going to get colder. I made Joe bundle up to come outside and help me! It's not pretty, but I drilled the hole, filed it out, attached the bracket, fed all the wires in. I told him I'd tweak it today. He was relieved of duties, and was happy to go back inside. He'd already done some grocery shopping, and brought home library books I'd picked out.

This camera is dual aspect, and the red stocking had to go to the other side of the deck. Much better. 

This one can grab the driveway and the feeder.

I went back at it on Saturday morning to tweak it, while Joe was taking the car for a good run into town. You can't let it sit in (even in the garage) without moving it in this cold!

See the opening under the arm? That's where the the power cord goes inside. I stuffed it was packing stuff, and then put some Flex tape over the hole. Otherwise we'll get bugs in there. Or mice friends!

The trick to working outdoors in this weather is to dress for it. I had on a t-shirt, hoodie, and my Belichicked jacket. He's the football coach, earning a fortune, who cuts the arms off his hoodie (<= photo).

It's a stylish look, is it not?! 😝

I think I've run into another problem! The Pride wind sock triggers it, I think. I'll have to change the setting, methinks. I can program the app to save certain sizes of critters that trigger the motion sensor. 

That does it!

Notice that Joe's Guinivere statue has convince the camera that it is a critter!

 I've a hair cut this morning at 9:45. A last-minute appointment. It should be quiet. Later, all 5 stylists are busy. Then they'll have the week off. 

I can rest on my laurels, now, and dive into my books.

Snow Recovery at Crumbly Acres, Part 2

Saturday, Dec. 17th Crumbly Acres! <= Read the backstory here!

We knew more was falling overnight. I did not know how much. It looked so bad Saturday morning. I've a lot of work to do. The trees are crumbling. (It snowed last night, again. Just a bit. )

  By Saturday morning we were down to 447 outages across the province and 14,257 households without power. Then, people woke up and reported the outages.

I did a short reconnaissance, not wanting to venture into the forest. Tree branches were falling all over the place. 

snowy day from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The trees looked so sad. 

Guinivere was snow covered. 

The sun was pinky where the clouds were diffusing. I kept getting distracted from my work.

I stopped here, to check out the satellite dish. Sure enough, not good. I could only see half of it. 

I made it to the road. It wasn't too bad with the snowblower.

Frosty snowman is buried:

I worked hard to get the driveway done. I feel better knowing we can get out. The soccer game was on at 10 a.m., and I had to clear off the satellite dish. The long-handled saw worked quite well. We didn't have any reception at all. I wasn't sure, so I stomped up the steps, poked my head in the door and asked JB. We were good! And the sun came out!

It was hovering around zero, rose to 5 in the sunshine. Great big clumps of snow dropped all day. Sometimes on my head.

After I was done all that, I had to go around and shake off the snow as best I could. 

The blue sky was terrific.

The climbing trees are a mess.

Sadly, this will take some time and energy. The sun came out Sunday. Indoors, we watched soccer.  My plan was to begin with the sumac Sunday afternoon. 

Rainy fall...

Wow. We've been having quite a bit of rain: yesterday 14 mm, and it is raining today. There were thunderboomers, again, and power outages across the province. We escaped. We had power, although we did have to reset the clocks.


I'm glad I was out and about the previous day. The goldfish pond is full, which is a shame, because once my new aquarium filter pump arrives (Friday?), I'll have to bring fishies in. That means draining it a bit at a time, as there is always one stubborn fish. Eleven fish, I have to remember...

I found that the bugs are still on the milkweed, despite the leaves being stripped by monarch caterpillars and milkweed bugs. It was quite a meeting!


I wanted to liberate a stump from the forest. It's a tree that grew on a 'nanny tree,' and the curve in the trunk reflected that. The birch tree is still standing, but as the stump rots the support for the other trees is gone. The photos are from March, 2019.
 
I found meself on the trailcam bringing it back.

The trick was to chop off the rest of the tree branches with the reciprocal saw, which I did. Then I could lift it. I popped it in a garden, it looks rather cool.

While I was at it, I took the wagon down to lot #3 to liberate some rocks from the forest. Whilst there, I found a total of three red efts.
 

In case you are wondering, I did not pick them up. (My hands were clean.) I covered them back up carefully. However, an archive photo, a red eft:

The eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) is a common newt of eastern North America. The red eft (juvenile) stage is a bright orangish-red in color, with darker red spots outlined in black.

a red eft

I brought this triangular-shaped rock back to the garden. The rocks shift as trees grow around it. 

Yay, fall.