As the days begin to lengthen the cold begins to strengthen

Posted on by hollyfrostgoldportpress

By Holly the Assistant

Some of us really enjoy the snow and cold, and such outdoor activities as are available this time of year.

Rocket, living her best life.

Others prefer to find a warm spot and glare balefully at the world.

Gertrude, on top the microwave. (You explain to her that you need to wipe the top of the microwave. I’ll watch from way over here.)

Humans being humans, and fairly stubborn and defiant at that, when it’s 2 F out (that’s -16.67 C), and hasn’t been above freezing for a month, tend to start planning gardens and thinking about what trees to try in the orchard and generally trying to rush summer along.

This is NOT the planned planting!

Quicksilver (orange and white) and the Wolf (all white, except for dirt) doing their best imitation of house plants. That is a jalapeno pepper Wolf is sleeping on, and Silver has a couple struggling green onions getting smushed.

(Sarah told me to post something silly, she’s exhausted. I said, Ok, I have Silver and Wolf in pots, that’s silly enough. I could have shared Wolf ‘helping’ me with electrical problems, but honestly that’s just scary, the electrical, not the Wolf. Yes, the Wolf and Silver are Indy, Circe, and Muse’s younger siblings, and the Wolf is very similar to Indy.)

Hope you all enjoy the four-footed crew here!

65 thoughts on “As the days begin to lengthen the cold begins to strengthen”

  1. Excellent house plants. ~:D

    Currently at Chez Phantom, Maximum Maxwell the murder-poodle is informing me there is an invasion of body snatchers outside, plus a zombie army. That’s how it sounds to me.

    Or some lady walking her dog. Or nothing, that’s a possibility too. Hard to tell with the French accent, right?

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    1. Our head of ranch security was a very good girl scaring off a possum trying to do a bank heist on the egg factory last night.

      Sounded like a movie effect because it was bouncing off of four different buildings….

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    1. Andy Ngo is reporting on this. He says there’s evidence of an actual “trans activist murder ring.”

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    1. We had a cat that thought houseplants meant litter box, despite all our efforts to provide alternatives.

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      1. When we bought this place, the atrium (well, yes, doesn’t every retired engineer’s dream home have a central atrium, which once contained a full- grown pecan tree, in the middle of his house?) was paved in cinderblock paving stones with patches of bare earth. Bare aside from discouraged rubber plants, I mean. And Sadie, our cat at the time, thought we’d provided built-in litter facilities.

        Which is why the atrium is now covered in hardwood flooring. I still mutter at how I quit watering the freaking rubber plants and they still refused to die. I wound up pulling them out by the root before the contractors arrived.

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          1. They’ll have to come up through a foot or so of sand topped with a concrete slab first.

            it’s a strange house. The original owners had to put on a pitched roof when the engineer realized flat wasn’t going to handle winter. The pecan tree died and was removed and the pitched roof went over the atrium. So we have a glass-walled room in the middle of the bedroom wing, with skylights. Which makes the atrium the brightest room in the house, at least on sunny days.

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              1. So far, they don’t.

                And while it can be dimmer on raining days, being inside the atrium listening to the rain come down is neat. (OTOH, the reason I can do that is there’s no insulation under that part of the roof).

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  6. Star-eyes and hearts at the cats. And the doggo too; she’s one happy-looking pup.

    It’s been a fairly mild and dry winter in the NW, at least the part of it I’m in. Less rain than normal, very little snow, and only in the last couple weeks has it really gotten cold. This is the time of year when we’d expect a subzero or single-digits cold snap, but so far it’s only gone down to average-winter, not depths-of-winter. The seasonal depression is hitting hard this year anyway; I’m huddled under one of those happy lamps at this very moment.

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    1. Our section of the PNW is dry and cold (20 F). Which is actually welcomed by our local downhill ski resorts. At least Hoodoo, Willamette, and Hood (not sure about Ashland). Normally the curse the dry and cold weather combination because does not include snow for them. But they got so much snow from late October through early January (all 3 actually opened before, barely, but still before, Thanksgiving, which, while not unheard of and prayed for, is not normal) that all 3 started going “Um. We prayed for Snow. Thank you. Can you slow down now? And, We have enough, already!” They actually need the chairs operating for the slopes to operate. Too much snow is as bad as not enough snow.

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    2. Flyover County weather is running per usual–completely abnormal. We had snow Jan 1, then heavy rain Jan 2 and 3, then cold. Cold and dry enough so that the highly porous soil (pumice plus a bit of clay, plus pine duff) had all the frozen water sublimate (more or less) out, leaving a soil somewhat akin to popcorn. Seriously no fun to walk on. Got lucky one day and could walk in the ruts from a single pass of the utility tractor. Beyond that, it’s fairly treacherous. Kat-the-dog loves it. Sigh.

      We’re supposed to get rain and snow starting Thursday. I’m praying it will make the soil less crazy. Besides, as per always, We. Need. The. Water.

      FYI, haven’t gone below 0F all winter, but are running 10-15 degrees below normal. Mid single digit lows, and mid to high 40s highs.

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  8. Tell Sarah to rest up. Winter is just tiring.

    OTOH, the restaurant our son will be managing opened today. He and his father both have opening-night (for values of night, they’re closing at 5 today) jitters. I’m not that serene myself. But he has survived the breakfast call by our pastor and his wife. So far, so good.

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  9. Nothing makes you feel older and younger at the same time than raising a new puppy.

    Perfect storm of holiday, vistors, work emergencies, illness, and losing sleep to the fur baby.

    Told my spouse, no more. The next pets will be virtual.

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  11. I am very happy to report that it hasn’t been below freezing for a couple of days in my part of the Old North State. I pray the people in the mountains got under cover before last weeks cold—though there was more snow in Nags Head (northern Outer Banks) than most places in the state; they got nine inches. Weatherbug says 59 F (15 C if I did my math right) in my neck of the woods.

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  12. Miz Kitty. Small plump Tabby. Technically brown, the tabby markings make her gray with some rust streaks. Mellow. Not super energetic, except for lasers and bugs.

    So there I sit, deep in some IT problem, on a video conference while we solve today’s mysteries. Unbeknownst to me, behind the veil of the curtained video booth I deployed to allow focus and privacy, she was creeping. Slowly, slowly she climbed the 5 foot shelf well away from my desk. Quietly she crept along the shelf tops and knicknacks. Then, up again to the top of the six foot shelf that overlooks my desk. There, in her hide, she waited for The Moment.

    Wait for it. Wait for The Moment. Waaaaiiiit……..

    “CHRRRRRRRT!” THUD! Death from Orbit! Straight down on the desk in front of the keyboard. Tail of Terror twitching as she photobombs the IT team.

    Most of the team thought it riotously funny. I may have needed a defibrillator. Got me good the fuzzy little, er, fuzzball.

    …

    Her new trick is to carefully put one paw on the trash can. Gently extend her claws…. then sscrOOOONCH! producing this rather booming sound from the can, shredding like some demented one note metalhead.

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  13. Jase T. Cat is lying here wondering what the [rude word] happened, that he woke up with a sore and bandaged leg and two fewer teeth. And why the world still seems to weave back and forth when he turns his head too fast. He’s supposed to be in a cone, but at the moment his leg is still wrapped, so no cone.

    When the bandage comes off, the cone goes back on. (I’m looking at another option, so he can go coneless for longer, but the stitches need to be protected from licking and chewing.)

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      1. He’ll probably tell you that he was doing valiant battle with doves/squirrels/community cats when he was perfidiously attacked by [something].

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    2. So I know of the Cone of Shame for Dogs (go UP!)

      Is it the same for Cats or does it have a different name?

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        1. Cone of sadness for our guy.

          He becomes the most pathetic little furball you’ve ever seen in your life. We had to get some fabric ones instead — more of a big wide ruff with a bit of stuffing in it for structure than a cone — so he could manage the litterbox and reach his food and water. Was still a Sad Boi, but at least not utterly despondent. And they worked just fine, though they might not stand up against a cat that’s really determined to defeat them.

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    3. He had two teeth removed for various reasons (long-term damage) and surgery to free tendons from scar tissue left by a long-ago procedure. He’s starting to recover, but is still not happy.

      Cone of shame, or an Elizabethan Collar. The cone is easier on all involved.

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      1. We tried the cone of shame for Kat-the-dog when she was spayed. She objected mightily, and really loudly. We relented and (by some miracle) convinced her that touching the stitches was Going To Have Consequences.

        She’s still loud, and barring acute distress prefers to bark than to cry about her needs, but she is a good, smart dog.

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  14. Democrats are squealing again, that Trump has “cut off federal aid to Americans!”

    He has frozen most government disbursements pending review. Which is primarily closing the money spigot on a lot of NGOs and ‘nonprofits’, all heavily infested with Democrats and their cronies. Hence the squealing.

    Seems to me, the louder the Democrats squeal, the more Trump is doing right.

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    1. Well, he’s paused grants to universities pending review of the departments that sponsored them, so I guess that’s kind of like cutting off federal aid to Americans.

      If you squint.

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      1. I saw the perfect rejoinder to the people looking down their noses at those misspelling Colombia.

        “Q: What’s the difference between Colombia and Columbia?

        A: One’s a sometimes ally, the other’s an enemy of America.”

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  18. Mean while in Cali, that battery fire has now polluted a watershed. With heavy metals, not one peep for the global warming/pollution crowd, I guess as long as the intentions are pure, the results don’t matter. I wonder what it will do to the endangered species in the area? If it wipes out the snail darter can they turn the water back on?

    These are rhetorical questions not meant to be answered. Liberal Democrats are insane and don’t care one wit about the environment, all they care about is virtue signalling and stealing money from the Treasury, once again may they all burn in a hell of their own creation.

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    1. Commies don’t care about the environment; its a pretext to grab power to dictate how people live. Just look at the toxic pollution that exists in every place ever run by commies. Makes the toxic sites in the USA look like the Garden of Eden.

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    2. Besides (recalling where the power plant was), the affected residents are poor low to middle class people. Why should the elites be bothered? Do I need a [/sarc] tag?

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    1. Kat does that on the meadow. Usually where there’s something “interesting” for her to smell. No cow pats on our land, mercifully. #shakeshead

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