Month: November 2022

Bitty Baby update, and… that’s a new one!

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The bitty baby seems to have developed a bit of a routine. After I’ve put the kibble out, I check inside the entry to the cats’ house, and usually see the bitty at the kibble, with one or two other kittens. Then I do my rounds and when I come back, I’ve been finding the bitty here.

He’s come out for some water, and taking a break.

The poor thing’s eyes are so gooby right now. The inner eyelids no longer look red and inflamed, so they no longer look like they’re bleeding, but now the eyes tend to be more stuck shut. I’ll have to get the girls to go out later in the day and give the eyes a good cleaning.

I was able to pick it up for some cuddles. It definitely didn’t like being picked up, but doesn’t fight me off anymore, either. After some cuddles, I put it down inside the entry, where it’s warmer. We got a mix of snow and rain last night, and while doing my rounds I saw snow still on the ground in the more shaded areas.

He is so incredibly tiny for this time of year, but I had a reminder that this is not the first time we’ve had such tiny kittens so late in the year. In fact, we had one show up even later. I popped onto Facebook while uploading pictures, and got one of those “X years ago today” things. It was a video of Dah Boy, who moved out here with us from the city. We had two stray cats show up on our balcony, having climbed the fire escape stairs to peek at us through the living room window. They were starving, so we started putting food out. One of them had a collar, and both were very friendly, wanting human attention as much as food and water! Then one day, the collar was gone and we could see a sore around the neck; the cat had been on its own since a much younger age, and outgrown the collar. We were able to take them to a vet to check for microchips, but there were none – and the one with the collar turned out to be a pregnant female. We tried to make a nest for her using a carrier we had, but when she disappeared for a while, we figured she had her kittens somewhere else. Soon after, we were able to put a patio table on the balcony, over the carrier, with a vinyl table cloth covering the space. That turned out to be what she needed. Somehow, that mama managed to drag her one kitten from wherever she had her litter, up two flights of stairs and a landing in between, under the gate onto our balcony, and into the carrier.

What a mama!

We already had two cats – the limit for where we were living – but we got permission to bring the mama and baby in. It was November, after all, and there was no way that baby would survive the winter without help. He was even younger than our bitty baby is right now! Once he was old enough to wean, we were able to adopt the mother out. A year later, she showed up on our balcony again! Pregnant again, but that’s another story. In the end, we found ourselves with Mom and Son (over time, our other two cats passed away), and they moved out here with us.

Dah Boy is now eleven years old.

Wow.

Which gives me hope for the bitty baby.

The bitty might be just tolerating attention so far, but the fully socialized cats are something else. Especially Plushy! Once she decided humans were good for something, now she won’t leave us alone.

Also, apparently I’m a tree.

The three of them were fighting for real estate when Plushy decided to take that open spot on the top of my head! This is a first!

Also, apparently my face is delicious. All three of them kept trying to like my face. Especially my nose! It is a rather large nose, so I guess it’s just easy to reach. 😉

Well, it looks like we’ve reached our high of the day already. 3C/37F. I’d better head outside and get some of the more temperature dependant stuff done!

The Re-Farmer

Quite a crowd!

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Usually, I have one or two kittens follow me for my entire rounds.

Some mornings, however…

While you can see four in the photo, there were eight of them that followed me to the sign cams on this particular morning! I think that’s a record.

The Re-Farmer

Re-covered

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When we first moved here, one of the things we noticed was the junk pile near the house, at the edge of the spruce grove. It’s one of the places mama cats would hide their litter of kittens, which is how Junk Pile got her name.

When we finally got around to cleaning it up, it turned out to not be a junk pile at all. It was a pile of salvaged boards, very carefully and neatly stacked. Some of the “junk” we found were the remains of tarps that used to cover it.

Years of exposure left the top board pretty rotten, and being salvaged from who knows where, a lot were full of nails. Still, we’ve been able to make use of them and, as we work our way deeper into the stack, the less rotten the boards.

After cleaning off the junk, we did use the original tarps to cover it up, and weighed it down with various things.

Then the groundhog that made a den under the stack decided the tarps would make good nesting material. Tore them to shreds!

With the horrible spring we had this year, we didn’t keep the yard as clear and mowed as we wanted, which meant one side of the stack got completely engulfed in thistles that reached nearly 5 ft tall in places.

Today, I finally got around to cleaning it up, so I could access the stack.

The kittens were very interested in what I was doing!

That groundhog did not leave much of those traps left at all. There was a blue one in there, as well as the orange one!

The grey tarp on the side is covering a pile of boards too rotten or full of nails to use; they’re laid over an old metal bed frame I found in the maple grove (there are still two more in there!) to keep them off the ground. I also found some old children’s toys, so I tucked those underneath, then covered the whole thing with yet another old tarp I found among the junk. This gives the yard cats yet another place they can tuck into for shelter, until we finally clean it out properly.

The hill the thistles are growing on is a bit of a mystery to me. It is one of those things that showed up in between our rare visits to the farm over the years. I think it might be where the ashes from the furnace got dumped, until the electric furnace was installed. It would take a lot of years of ashes to make a hill that big!

Also, I need better quality garden gloves. Thistles go right through them!!!

The next step was to take everything off the top for a few layers. There’s a lot of spruce debris in there. I would have to take the whole pile apart to get it all out, but I just wanted to get the worst of it near the top removed. Then the boards went back more neatly, making sure that any with nails in them had their nails facing down!

The stack itself is built up on some pallets, and there are more pallets, and other miscellaneous things, on the far side of the stack. They’re all pretty rotten, but only one of them was also in the way. I had to fight to get it out, as it kept getting stuck on the other two pallets one corner was in between, but it was so rotten, I could just tear it apart and drag it out! That went into our own junk pile that is waiting until we can hire someone to haul it to the dump.

Once that was all cleaned up and ready, I grabbed an 8’x10′ tarp from the 3 pack I bought at Costco a few months ago and brought it over to cover the stack. I’ve already used another one of them to replace the tarp I’d found in the barn to cover the post pounder by the garage. It was a huge tarp, but the wind tore it to shreds. An 8’x10′ tarp doesn’t cover it completely, but they’re heavier duty tarps, and I tied it down like crazy. I can see it on the security camera live feed, and absolutely nothing flaps around on that thing! With the stack of boards, I needed to do the same thing. I had to make sure the wind could not get ahold of it, once it was over the stack.

My goodness, the kittens went nuts while I was going that! They just could not get enough of running around and playing on it!

Which made tying it down a real challenge!

I think I spent twice as much time tying down the tarp as it took me to clear away the thistles and clean up the top of the pile! Thanks to all the leftover pieces of wood that I brought over to do the wattle woven raised bed, I had plenty of sticks I could use for pegs.

At the far end, the tarp is tied to the old pallet still back there, and even the dead trees. In a few places where the tarp was tight around corners of boards, I added some bits of pool noodle foam (we used scrap bits on supports around some garden beds, to protect the netting they were holding up, and the last of the netting was removed today) and even some paper towel from a roll kept in the garage. I didn’t want the corners of the boards to rub their way through the tarp in the wind. The remaining three sides were pegged to the ground. While probably not needed, I returned the stuff we were using as weights before, just in case. I can easily imagine kittens playing with the twine and pulling pegs out of the ground. 😄

The boards may be old, but at least now they won’t get any worse over the winter. I have no idea what we might use them for – there is no consistency in lengths, thicknesses or even how the ends are cut – but better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it!

By the time I finished putting everything away and got inside, it was full dark. It was very disorienting to look at the time and realize it wasn’t even 7pm yet! At least it was a more productive day today. The pile of garden soil is once again covered, and since I was out near the barn anyhow, I brought the frame pieces for the carport to the yard. I’m sure we’re still missing a cover piece, but even if we are, I’d like to find a way to set it up near the house, over where the old basement window is. It was warm enough to do one final watering of the Korean Pine; my daughter got the sliver buffaloberry and sea buckthorn done yesterday. We’ll have to be careful putting the hoses away, so they don’t crack in the cold. We even got a dump run in.

The next couple of days are supposed to reach highs of just above freezing, then a couple of days of slightly warmer temperatures. After that, our highs are going to be below freezing, and staying there. At least that’s what one app is telling me. Another weather app is a bit different – and forecasting colder temperatures. About the only thing that really needs to get done in the next few days, though, is to cover the hole in that shed roof with the large tarp I got for it. Getting it up and over is not going to be easy, never mind fastening it down. What we could really use is scaffolding! Ah, well. I’ll just add that to the list… 😉 Anyhow, we’re looking at possible rain and snow a few days from now, so we really need to get that taken care of. There are too many things in that shed that are useful. I don’t want the roof to collapse, if I can avoid it!

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Generations

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I tried to do another headcount while feeding the yard cats this morning, and got 29.

Then more adults showed up!

Speaking of adults…

Guess which one is the adult, and which is the teenager?

The smaller one on the left, caught in an adorable tongue blep, is the adult, Caramel – an obvious descendant of Beep Beep! The black and white is from the oldest litter that we discovered in the cats’ house, in late April!

They’re hard to tell apart, but here’s a photo taken on April 29.

These were Junk Pile’s first litter of the year, and she moved them out not long after. Thankfully, they all survived. These are Plushy, the tuxedo, the black and white, plus a grey tabby that will not let us near it.

Now these babies are almost adult size, and bigger than most of the adults! The black and white and the tuxedo are the burliest. They let us pet them every once in a while, too. Junk Pile went on to have a second litter of white and grey Shop Towel babies, younger than the ones Rosencrantz had.

Caramel was born just last year, and she had the latest litter of the year until the bitties showed up. It looks like there’s just two, or two that survived. They are very shy ones, but I do see them regularly now. One is a dark grey tabby, while the other looks even more like Beep Beep than her mother, with that distinctive orange splotch on her forehead. The truth is, I’ve never seen those two kittens with an adult, but I know Caramel had kittens somewhere around the collapsing log cabin and the old threshing machine, and that’s where those two kittens started showing up from. Now, they seem to have mostly moved in under the cats’ house. It must be pretty cozy under there, considering how many of the smaller cats I see under there. I’m hoping the scrap pieces of rigid insulation I slipped under there have helped make it even better. 😊

It was decidedly chilly out this morning, so of course I’m worried about the smaller kittens. Especially the bitty baby. I put kibble in the tray just inside the cat house entry and later saw it eating there – a long with two other kittens! When I was coming back from finishing my rounds, I saw it using the ramp to leave the water shelter, and I was able to pick it up for cuddles. It was shivering, the poor thing! I made sure to put it down inside the entry of the cat house. Just sticking my hand in to do that, I could feel a substantial difference in temperature!

I was glad to see it had come out for water but, at the same time, frustrated. I got one of those no-spill water bowls for inside the cat house, setting it on the tray just inside the entry. The tray may be jammed in nice and tight and isn’t moving, but the water bowl ended up knocked about and further into the cat house. That’s the second one that got knocked out of reach. I’d have to lift the roof to be able to get at it, and that’s just not something I want to do unless I have to. It’s very disruptive, and the shelter is old enough that there’s risk of breaking something. Which means the bitty has to leave the warmth of the shelter to get to water. Being the tiniest of the kittens, it’s far more at risk from the dropping temperatures.

I’m still holding out for a mild winter. The Farmer’s Almanac predicts that some areas will be bitterly cold this winter, while others will be much milder. Looking at their winter forecast map, we are – as usual! – basically at the border between the two areas, so if their forecast is accurate, we could go either way.

If it weren’t for the destruction caused by the racoons, I’d be leaving the doors to the sun room propped open overnight, so they’ve have even more shelter available to them!

I am such a suck, when it comes to the cats! 😂

The Re-Farmer

I’ve been Mooned

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By a snuggly Rolando Moon.

Rolando Moon seems to be hanging around more often, lately. I think she’s getting ready to stay with us for the winter again. She sometimes still likes to follow me around when I’m going my morning rounds.

What a sweet, badass old lady!

The Re-Farmer

Making stock

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I can’t help it. I feel like I’ve wasted a day. I got a stock going and tended it, off and on, for much of the day. While I didn’t have to be there constantly, I was checking on it often enough that I didn’t want to start anything that took too much of my focus or was too distracting. I ended up actually *gasp* watching TV, binge watching DS9 on Prime. I could use each the status bar on the episodes as my timer to go check the stove. Normally, I’d at least do something like crochet at the same time, but a summer in the garden has left my fingertips so rough, most yarns stick to them like Velrco, and I ended up pulling the loops right off the hook! 😆

Ah, well. I suppose it’s good to have a break every now and then.

One thing I discovered while sitting on the couch watching the show.

Fenrir missed me!

Before Butterscotch and Nosencrantz came indoors, she used to spend as much time as she could like this, while I was at my computer.

Which made it very difficult to type.

Unfortunately, Fenrir is one of the cats that will come in and immediately launch an attack at Nosencrantz if allowed in my room. Butterscotch, too, if she’s in view. I have no idea why she is so aggressive towards them. Especially Butterscotch. Butterscotch and Beep Beep took her in, along with their own kittens, when she showed up at our place as a kitten, our first summer here. Now, she will spend hours just outside my bedroom door, watching it and, if I’m not careful, she’ll teleport herself into my room as soon as the door opens, and attack Nosencrantz. She’s amazingly fast! Given the opportunity, however, she will climb onto me, curl up on my chest, and nap, as she did several times, today. She was not impressed by my frequently getting up to tend the stove. 😁

Our fridge freezer had quite a few bags of carcasses waiting, mostly from chickens, but also some turkey. I roasted them first, and they completely filled my roasting pan. There was enough that I used my giant stock pot, that I’ve also been using for water bath canning, to fit it all.

Into the pot went most of our remaining Uzbek Golden carrots.

I admit. I’m a coward.

I could have used at least a couple of Black Nebula carrots, too. That would have changed the colour significantly! But I decided that might not look too appetizing. 😂

Along with the carrots I added crushed garlic cloves, yellow and red onions – the little ones from our garden – plus celery. For seasonings, I added course salt, whole peppercorns, turmeric powder, dried thyme leaves and dried parsley, then covered it all with water. Later on, I added a generous splash of our crab apple cider vinegar, too.

After bringing it to a boil I let it simmer for about 7 hours adding more water to the pot part way through. After that, I used a hot pot soup strainer spoon that I find very handy, to take out as many of the bones and vegetables as I could, then a small sieve to strain out more, before finally ladling it through a fine mesh strainer into my other two stock pots.

The larger pot, with the measurements on the inside, shows a little under the 6 quart line. In total, I would say there’s about 10, maybe 11, quarts (11 to 12 1/2 litres).

For now, the pots are covered and cooling, as is the bowl of carcasses and vegetables. I’m debating what to do with it next. I could just pour it into freezer bags and freeze them, as is. Or I could cook it down to make a more concentrated stock. I’m kind of leaning towards cooking it down more. I’ll see how it looks in the morning.

The Re-Farmer

We hit a record this morning

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I did a head count while feeding the yard cats this morning. It is, of course, always hard to keep track while counting, because they move around so much, but they were more cooperative than usual this morning.

Thirty two.

Thirty. Two.

Including the bitty baby and a buddy inside the cats’ house.

Among the adults, there was Rosencrantz, Rolando Moon, Junk Pile, Broccoli and Caramel. Later on, I saw Shop Towel (formerly known as Sad Face), the obvious father of all the white and grey kittens. We’ve also seen The Distinguished Guest in the last couple of weeks, though I haven’t seen him yet, today. I do wish our own adult males would show up, instead of the visiting toms. Anyhow. When it was feeding time, I had 32 of them, all at once.

They were also very happy with a top up of warm water!

Not only was there no kibble left in the trays when I came out this morning, but three of the water bowls were empty, and the fourth one had ice. Things are still mild enough that I could use the hose to fill them, but I think they are really appreciating the warm water.

I’m really hoping the lysine starts to help soon. The powder that came in yesterday coats the kibble a lot better than the crushed tablets did. I was able to catch and cuddle the bitty baby this morning – he (she?) made only a half hearted attempt to run away, and once I was holding him, settled right into my hands. His inner eyelids are so very red right now. His eyes actually look fairly clear, but the redness and swelling looks just awful! Some of the other cats are pretty much clear of gooby eyes, while others are still looking icky. A few are still coughing and sneezing, but for the most part, they are all improving. The bitty baby is the only one that’s been getting worse, but he didn’t start showing signs of problems until very recently.

Today is supposed to be a chilly day, then a bit warmer tomorrow, so I’ve decided I’ll be staying inside. Aside from the chill, my pain levels are high this morning. The fridge freezer is getting too full of chicken and turkey bones, so I will free up some space and make some stock out of them. That’s going to take a while, so I’d better get started!

The Re-Farmer

I made a video

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I put together images of the wattle woven raised bed and made a video out of it. This time, I borrowed my daughter’s microphone for the narration, and WOW was it better! I didn’t have to use background music to camouflage the background noises my headset microphone always made.

Something got glitchy when I saved it. I had to save it several times to get rid of some strange coloured stripes that showed up. They were only visible after I saved the file and checked it, never in the editing software. I uploaded the video, only to find the glitch had simply moved to the very beginning of the video. I had to re-save it and re-upload it, and I think this one worked.

Please let me know if you can view it all right!

The Re-Farmer

Changes in plans, and so many kitties!

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What a crowd while feeding the yard cats this morning!

There’s a bunch of them that really prefer having breakfast on the roof! 😁

I counted 29 of them this morning! Unfortunately, I found the ramp board into the cats’ house was knocked down. I fixed it, but I think the bitty baby ended up spending the night under the cat house instead of in it. You can just see his head poking out near the counterweight, where I leave some kibble. Quite a few of the smaller kittens prefer to be under there.

Last night, my husband let me know that a couple of my orders were in at the post office, so once I finished my morning rounds, I headed out. One of the packages was the lysine powder!

I’ve got two of these, so they should last a while. Depending on how things work, I might order these every month or two. They came in almost a week early, so we still have tablets left, too. I think I’ll switch to the powder right away, though. I think it’ll coat the kibble better than what I get after using a mortar and pestle on the tablets. I’ll test it out when we do their evening feeding. I really hope this stuff works. Even the bitty baby is starting to get gooby eyes. 😟

A couple of days ago, I’d asked my mother if she needed any help with errands today. Especially for a grocery trip. She didn’t think so, but was supposed to call yesterday to confirm. She didn’t, but I did get a call this morning, telling me that she was good and didn’t need anything.

Several hours later, she called back. Was I still available? She figured we might get snow soon, and decided it was a good idea to stock up.

I think she got the flier in the mail and saw some good sales, which made her think of it, too.

Which as no problem at all. I had just finished lunch and hadn’t started anything outside yet, so nothing was interrupted. With having me available to help carry things, and her car to bring them home, she stocked up quite a bit. It’s just for herself, so she doesn’t really need much. Plus, we got to visit for a bit, and neither of us were in any hurry!

Once I got home, I had an adorable sight greeting me. A whole pile of kittens mashed into the cat bed by the east facing window of the cat shelter. I took a peek in the south facing window, and there were even more of them!

I’m not sure if there are 7 or 8 in here. The picture I took of the kittens in the other window had too many reflections on the plexiglass to see well, but I think there was another 4 or 5 on that bed.

You can see the bitty baby right by the window above, next to Colin. Most of the white and grey cats are hard to tell apart, but Colin (Mochrie) has a distinctive “hairline” on his forehead. He’s also the only one of the grey and whites that is mostly socialized. There is one other that we can sometimes, almost, sortof, pet, but that’s it!

I think we need more cat beds for inside their shelter. 😄

The Re-Farmer