Your daily Ginger!

Another Ginger update!

Oh, and the outside cats, too. 😀

He’s still doing very well. Last night, my husband spent some time in the sun room to keep him company. I think it’s the first time he’s seen my husband! He did allow for some scritches, but did not otherwise come close. Plus, he really likes his spot under the heater bulb.

This morning, he was quite active, and my daughters had to keep him away from the door when I had to head out to feed the outside critters. He wanted outside again!

We also turned the new warming mat on, with an hour on the timer. It’s been positioned so he can sit on it while eating, so even after it turns itself off, he has a nice, soft butt warmer. 😉

Through much of the winter, there was a lot of kibble left in the bowls outside when I came out to refill them in the morning. So much so that, some days, I didn’t add any more at all.

No longer! For the past few days, I’ve been finding the containers completely empty. Not a crumb left! When I come out the door in the morning, the cats come running from all over, eager for food. Even the heated water bowl was completely dry this morning!

Judging from the smell I’ve noticed some mornings, I suspect we have some stripy “kitties” showing up at night, having a snack. Since adding that board across the front of the kibble house to keep the containers from being knocked out, they have a harder time getting at the kibble, but they still manage. I’ve stopped adding kibble to the bowl just inside the entry into the cat house, until we have a chance to open it up and tidy things. The container in there is upside down, with cat mats bunched up on top. This morning, I found one of those mats outside the entry. I think it got pulled out while critters were digging around in the entry, trying to find every last bit of kibble that was spilled onto the floor!

The outside cats are seeming more skittish than usual. Not even Butterscotch would come near me, and when I get too close to the kibble house, they’d all bolt. Only Rolando Moon would let me touch her this morning, and that was only because she thought I was bringing out food! Creamsicle Jr. (in the above photo) has become more skittish for some time. Which I’m sad about, because we had been able to at least touch and pet him, once in a rare while, over the summer.

The mostly white cat in the above photo has always been skittish, though. Nothing has changed, there!

Rosencrantz looked like she was stalking her baby! 😀

It was good to see as many of the outside cats as I did, but there are some missing faces still, and I am starting to think they won’t be coming around anymore. 😦

That’s just how it goes on the farm, and we’ve had many cats simply stop coming round in the years we’ve been here – Beep Beep, Butterscotch and Rolando Moon are the only ones left among those that were here when we moved in, and they were all among the cats my late father took care of. The males, in particular, disappear faster as they range further out. I can hope that they’ve settled in on another farm somewhere, but … well. That’s not very likely. At least the females tend to stay where they know there are safe places to have kittens and there’s a reliable source of food. They let the boys all come to the yard to see them, rather than going further afield themselves. 😉

Another reason to turn Ginger snap into an indoor cat!

The Re-Farmer

10 thoughts on “Your daily Ginger!

  1. We have strays that show up here from time to time. A few years ago a large yellow cat turned up and hung around. I had started calling it Mustard when I first saw it, since it was a basic non gender type name. Mustard hung around longer than any had before, but then my dad had begun feeding it. Mustard disappeared a couple months ago and dang near broke dad’s heart. Now he’s feeding a black, obviously expecting cat. I have 3 that have taken up residence under my house. Which can be a bit disconcerting if they get into a fight right underfoot.

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    • Aw, that’s hard! I hope the black stays close.

      My dad loved the cats. They were pretty feral, but not with my dad! It gets pretty expensive to feed them all, but he would be most disappointed in me if I didn’t take care of them! 🙂

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      • Oh I know about the cost. All of these are feral, the black trusts dad but only dad. One of the 3 up here has gotten to where it trust us, lets us pet and hold it. The other two are like, nope. My hope was to get them tame enough to find them homes. We do have stray dogs, and coyote, not to mention the main road not too far away. Its hard not to like them, even when they fear you.

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  2. My cats, even my indoor pets, have been oddly skittish too. Maybe it’s a spring time thing?

    If all the outdoor kibble disappears here, esp with the water, it’s due to a raccoon (or several). I have some vid of ferals that now ignore the raccoons, which is crazy to me.

    Because several of the outdoor kitties like to cuddle, I gave them a large self heating pad to share. So far, they’ve only looked at and smelled it. Temps are warm here (supposed to reach near 80F this weekend and over that on Wed), so I’m pretty sure the kitties will be spending nights on the mat soon.

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    • Oddly, we don’t seem to have racoons here. My sister has them at her farm, but she is a fair bit far from us. She has a few wild critters we don’t.

      I’m hoping the skittishness is just spring fever.

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      • If it was just skittishness, I’d be more inclined to go along with that. All the food disappearing also though would indicate something else is eating it. Maybe just a skunk, maybe something else. 🙂

        Raccoons themselves; I said the same thing here. The trash was never disturbed, etc… Then one insomnia filled night I was sitting in the sun room and saw one wandering around the back yard. O_O

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      • Well, we are certainly in their range. I got curious and looked it up. Turns out they are pretty rare this far North, still, and have only been around even in the southern areas only since the 1950’s or so. Who knew? Lol

        My sister found a litter of racoon babies in her garage one year. They have an attached garage! 😁

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