In the last while, the kittens have become more interested in following me around as I do my morning rounds. Especially when I go to switch the memory card in the trail cam. Usually, it’s just one or two kittens, though.

This morning, my daughter came along, and that really got their attention, so we had 4 of them from the start. 😀

Oh, and Butterscotch, too! (You can see her on the driveway.)

Butterscotch has not been around much, lately, but some mornings she likes to surprise me. This was taken a few days ago.

She was just rolling all over that tree!!

When I got home from driving my daughter to work and was making my way across the yard, I had cats and kittens emerging from all over to greet me, wanting pets! At one point, as I was bent over to pet a kitten, another jumped onto my back and settled in. Then another tried to jump on my back, but the first one was in the way, so she got stuck half way. Which meant I was stuck bent over with on kitten on my back and another dangling off my butt. Too funny!

On a less fun note…

I got a call back from the RCMP yesterday and had a long talk about the letter our vandal left at my mother’s place. I even emails the pictures I took of it to the officer. He found the contents of the letter “concerning.” He brought up the suggestion for my mother to get a “peace bond” against our vandal. He understood that this would be a difficult thing for my mother to do, but wasn’t sure if someone could do it on her behalf. He also suggested we do the same for ourselves. It’s a bit like a restraining order, which it turns out our province doesn’t have. It does have protection and prevention orders, which are things one might get in cases of domestic violence and stalking (one is granted under more urgent circumstances than the other). It is possible for someone to get a protection order on someone else’s behalf, but again, it’s focuses on domestic violence, plus it would be done for someone who is not mentally able to do it themselves, with written proof from a doctor potentially needed. Nothing about someone who isn’t physically able to do it themselves.

Looking into it, the peace bond is interesting, in that one can be granted if there is a likelihood of property damage. Considering we already have proof of property damage, this would make sense for us to do. However, this is not something connected to any urgent situation, so it can take weeks to be processed, and months to go through the court system.

Which is the other thing. Whether for ourselves or for our mother, we’d have to go to court in either of the nearest cities to apply for one, then attend court sessions (the other party, of course, has the opportunity to defend themselves). I suppose it’s possible to do both at once?

As I think about it, on the one hand I am thinking that this would be worthwhile doing. If granted, restrictions include no alcohol or drugs, and no firearms, for up to a year. The “no alcohol” part would make the most difference.

On the other hand, I can’t help but think;

I do not want to go through this again.

We had issues a few years back with someone who returned a favour with threats and false accusations. The police, children’s services and the courts were involved, and we did get a restraining order. It’s a very long story that I will not go into, but I spent a lot of time at the law courts for a while. We were living in the downtown area, so it was just a few blocks away. The stress of it all was huge, with significant costs in both time and money, too.

I was pretty sure we would have issues with this person after we moved here, but I never thought it would get to the point that we would have to consider getting the equivalent of a restraining order.

So that’s something we will need to discuss and figure out.

On a more positive note:

The girls and I have been discussing things we want to do before winter. They want to build an insulated cat shelter next month, so we’re going over design ideas and working out what materials would be needed. The nice thing is that the store will cut the wood to size for us, so not having a table saw will not be the issue it would otherwise be.

The long term goal is to not be using the sun room for cats by next winter. We expect to do it again this winter, if only because we haven’t been able to adopt all the kittens out, and are still closing them up in there, nightly.

On another positive note, I’m happy to say that, while the storms passed us by during the night, we did actually get quite a bit of rain. Even a downpour.

So I will be going around the yard with a wheelbarrow to pick up all the fallen branches. I haven’t seen any big ones, yet, so that’s good.

The metal roof pieces we put on the old garden shed were blown off, though. Before the rain started. So that’s something we’ll need to put back more permanently. It’s not worth repairing, but there’s stuff inside that is and, at the moment, nowhere else to put them.

Well, back to work for me! 🙂

The Re-Farmer