I counted 22 cats outside while doing their kibble and warm water this morning!

One of them was Pinky, the only kitten with orange we had last year. I was even able to pet him a bit, though he’s not quite comfortable with attention. I heard from the Cat Lady this morning; it’s been a while, due to her health issues, so it was quite a relief to hear from her. She had someone who was looking for an orange kitten and asked if we had any, so I tried to get pictures of him. This person might be okay with a young cat, instead, so I also sent a picture of Turmeric.

This, however, is not Pinky, nor Turmeric. It’s one of the cats we can’t come near, and I don’t usually see him sitting still when I’m around. I just had to zoom in to take some pictures, because this is the first time I’ve had a really good look at his eyes!

They are so very pale! Most of our cats have eyes that are gold or green, but this one’s eyes look almost like a pale blue! The photo doesn’t do justice to how light they really are. In the shade of the water shelter, they seemed to glow white. Just gorgeous!

After finished my morning rounds, I had to make a trip to a Walmart to get more kibble. The outside cats may be eating less again, but we still weren’t going to have enough to last until our next stock up trip to the city. I just went to the smaller, closer Walmart, and used the trip to pick up a few other things – including some extras for the freezer, and even some treats.

This is $223.46 – after taxes.

Usually, I get the biggest bags of kibble they have – and this time, there was plenty of cat food in stock – but I got the sense the cats were getting tired of it. There’s just one brand and one flavour in the 10kg size. So this time, I got two 9kg bags for the outside cats, and a 7.5kg bag for the inside cats, all in different flavours. The larger bags were just under $30 each, and the smaller one just under $22. Once I got home, I topped up their food, and they were eating quite enthusiastically, so I think I was right about the “getting tired of it” part.

They also had stove pellets in stock this time, so I got a bag for the cat litters. Just one, and it saved me from having to go to another store. When it’s time to stock up, I’ll get several bags from Canadian Tire. This bag cost almost $8. Canadian Tire has softwood pellets for just under $7.

Eggs were on my list, and the 18 count eggs were a good price, at $5.58 each, so I got two. Bread was on my list as well, so I got a couple loaves of rye bread ($3.47 each) and a couple packages of wraps ($6.27 each), which are bread products we don’t make ourselves. I also got a larger Walmart brand of hot dog wieners at $5, so there’s a couple of bags of hot dog buns ($3.67 each) to go with those. The weather has been so mild, we’ve been talking about getting the fire pit going, so these are a treat for the girls to cook over the fire. Also on my list was cheese, so I got Havarti, old and marble from the 2 for $10 selection. I had butter on my list, too, but I got just one pound. The cheap, no-name butter was $5.97. Much better than the local prices, but still getting quite high for no-name!

Not on my list, but at an excellent price, were a couple of chickens for the freezer. They were selling at under $2 a pound. I got the biggest ones I could find, but they’re still much smaller than the ones we got from my homesteading neighbour. At less than $10 a chicken, I won’t say no to something I can add to our supply if I can get it! I also got some sour cream, just because we were out, but I also got some carrots that were a very good price. We do still have the Black Nebula carrots, but we’re just not using them. They’ve got so many root hairs on them, and they’re so small, they’re not worth cleaning. Plus, the colour makes anything cooked with them look pretty unappetizing, to be honest. They’d be good for fresh eating or for juicing, if we could get all those root hairs off, but I think the last of them are just going to get composted.

Too bad we don’t have chickens yet. They’d love them!

Oh, and I got another bag of seed starting mix. We’ve got to get those onion seeds started! I was gong to do that this afternoon, until I realized I couldn’t put off getting more kibble. One last thing I got that wasn’t on the list was a deodorant for the girls to try. The price was really, really good, but it’s not a brand they usually use (my husband and I use antiperspirant), and I wasn’t sure they’d like the scent. I like to pick up stuff like deodorant, tooth paste and other toiletries when the price is good, to stock up our supplies, just in case. With this year’s mild winter, we’ve been able to get out as needed for a change, but last year, with the vehicles freezing and/or not being able to get through the roads or driveway at times, we definitely started to run low on such things before we could finally go shopping!

I also got some treats for my husband and I. The Valentine’s Day stuff is out, so I got some Cinnamon Hearts for my husband. One of the side effects of all the drugs he’s on is that he’s lost much of his sense of taste, so something that’s spicy hot is appreciated. He can actually taste it! It’s something handy to have, if his blood sugars suddenly drop again. He’s definitely had some scary moments. Which isn’t supposed to happen, since he’s on a slow release insulin that is taken only once a week, but it does. 🙁 For myself, I got some dark chocolate mint wafers. I also got a vitamin water drink for the road, and a bag of chocolate almonds to keep in the van. I like to have some sort of munchy in the van for those days when we’re running around, but aren’t able to stop and eat. Usually, it’s a big container of mixed nuts from Costco, but we aren’t going to make it to Costco until the end of the month for our regular stock up trip. Not making it to Costco for our January stock up has left us making way too many smaller trips.

With what I got today, we should not be running out of anything until the end of the month, when we do our February stock up trip. This time, Costco is going to be done first! It seems that if we try to split our shopping days and do the other locations first, we end up not making it to Costco at all, but doing more smaller trips instead – and that takes more out of the budget, for less supplies.

December and January are always odd months for trips, but this winter, even more so than usual. Extra trips involving cat stuff certainly changed things, too!

Hopefully, things will start settling down again, and we can be our usual hermit selves. 😉😄

The Re-Farmer