For some reason, I just could NOT sleep last night. I didn’t finally fall asleep until around 5am, and even then, I woke up several times before I finally gave up.

So I was a bit late with my morning rounds.

I managed to get a decent photo of this fuzzy cutie.

Yup. We most definitely have another “David” here. This is going to be an equally long haired cat. I do hope we can socialize him (or her), because if we can’t get at him when he’s an adult, he’s going to end up with all sorts of mats in his fur.

Last night, I made a final push and got the rest of the silver buffalo berry mulched. It was too dark and I was going to get a photo this morning, but completely forgot. The cardboard is mulched. Once we get more cardboard, we’ll fill in the gaps between the saplings in the second row, the mulch that, too. Until then, the next area to work on will be the Korean Pine in the outer yard.

While I was working, I had Rolando Moon hanging around and keeping me company. She was enjoying sitting on the wood chips next to one of the saplings! As long as she wasn’t rolling on the saplings, I don’t mind.

While I was putting food out for the kitties this morning, Rolando Moon came by – and she was limping! While she will let us pet her, within limits, there is no way she’ll let me look at her paw to see what’s going on. I think I see some swelling, but I’m not sure.

Mostly, she hung around the yard, watching the other cats while they ate, waiting her turn. Including Rosencrantz and her five babies (one of the grey and whites ran off when I came close, so there’s only four in the picture). Junk Pile photobombed me while I was taking pictures. She is not a happy kitty, and will hiss at any of the other cats – including her own cat-tens – and us. I know she’s had a second litter, and the one time I saw her rolling on the ground, she is definitely nursing, and I don’t think she’s impressed with the situation.

Meanwhile, after my morning rounds, I had to make a trip into town. With the raccoons knocking over the kibble bin, we did have some spillage. Not much, thankfully, but enough that we weren’t going to have enough to last until our big shopping trip. If I hadn’t been so late with my morning rounds, I could have stopped at the post office before it closed for lunch, and I would have been able to pick up our new trail cam, to replace the one that disappeared. I’m quite looking forward to trying it out. We did put the old, original trail came up at the sign and, amazingly, it’s actually working all right. It’s set to stills, not video, and is aimed at the area in front of the sign, but it’s not a wide angle lens, so it’s mostly picking up the road.

It always amazing me how much traffic we have on our little road.

So right now, I’m just waiting for the post office to open, and I’ll head out again to pick up the camera.

Meanwhile, I’ve set up a painting job under the canopy tent. When we moved here, there was a platform bed frame that turned out to have been left for us by my brother, until our stuff came in. For the last few years, tt had been in the basement until I brought it out this spring to use as a platform to hold seedlings out of cat reach, to harden off.

This spring, that basement got very wet, and things started to mold. It’s dry now, and my younger daughter has been spending her nights slowly cleaning it. One of the things we now want to do is raise all the litter boxes off the concrete floor. That end of the basement had the most dampness. Thank goodness we use the stove pellets for litter, because if we were still using clay, that would have been so difficult to clean up!

To prevent this from happening again, we’re going to use the old bed frame, which is twin size and only about 6 or 8 inches high, as a platform for the litter boxes. It’s just raw wood, so we’re going to paint it, first. That way, it can be cleaned more easily. The only paint we have right now is the red exterior paint I used on the bench and the stairs, which should be just fine.

Over the next while, I’ll be slowly picking up paint for the basement. The girls want to paint between the floor joists to lighten things up, make it more visible, and easier to clean. I’ll also pick up a mold and mildew resistant primer, then regular interior paint for the walls.

It’s very handy having two daughters who worked in a hardware store and were both paint trained. They can tell me exactly what we need for the job. 🙂

That will be a winter long project, though, working on a little at a time!

Oh, look at the time!

I’m off to pick up a new trail cam!

The Re-Farmer