Month: August 2023

Kitty status and morning in the garden

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First, I have heard about how the adopted ladies are doing. They are recovering well at the Cat Lady’s home for now. The Phantom is being an absolute, loving joy. The kitten is also being really sweet.

Decimus is hissing and spitting and not a happy camper, but doing well, health wise! They have several catios, though, so they were able to let her go “outside” to get some fresh air.

My daughter and I went outside with the flashlight last night. Still no sign of Marlee or Butterscotch. We did spot a cat in the driveway that turned out to be Nosencrantz. Once my daughter started walking towards her, though, she ran off into the old hay yard.

If we’ve seen her, chances are pretty good the other two are okay, too.

Right?

As for the remaining cats in the isolation ward, the kittens are doing just fine, though getting very active and destructive! TTT spends most of her time in her napping cave in my closet, but she sure knows when the food is coming out!

She has also continued to make a mess on the puppy pads next to the litter box under my desk.

*sigh*

At least it’s on a puppy pad, and not my bed or the carpet.

She is also remarkably regular. She always goes in the same place, and even goes at almost the same time! I was awakened by the rustling of the puppy pad being dug into this morning. I found it was very wet and changed it, then went back to bed. Maybe an hour later, I was again awakened by that familiar rustling sound, and she’d dropped a load this time. Again, thankfully, on the puppy pad and an easy clean up, but I find it interesting that she has such a consistent habit of time and location!

Now, if she would just use that litter box, instead. The kittens are sure liking it. 😕

This morning, as I started getting the kibble ready for the outside cats, I spotted the stranger cat, inside the sun room!

For a stranger cat, it’s acting right at home.

S/He was even sharing a food bowl with Beep Boop and the friendly black and white kitten.

I feel I should know this cat. The face looks familiar. In fact, the face makes me think of Potato Beetle. The markings on the sides, though, are not at all familiar.

Could this be a yard kitten from last year that took off before we became familiar with it, only to come back now? It’s possible, but I don’t remember seeing a kitten with markings like that last year. Mind you, it might also be a slightly older cat, too. I still can’t come close to it, though.

After finishing my rounds, I noticed the bitty kitties around with Octomom (whose name is actually Slick, but I kept forgetting that). They were watching me, so I got out the lure – just some jute twine tied to a stake.

This adorable ball of fluff took the bait and started trying to catch the end of the twine. I was actually able to get hold of it and pick it up. It did not like that, though! I pet it for a bit, but as I was trying to put it back down again, it chomped on my fingers and left me bleeding.

It was worth it.

I didn’t intend to harvest anything this morning, though I did end up picking some Red Swan beans and a couple of yellow patty pans. Mostly, I was making sure everything was doing well.

While checking the Crespo squash, I spotted a female flower! There have been so few of those this year. Wild that one should show up so late.

Also, that’s 2 bees in there, one on top of the other!

I decided to hand pollinated anyway, just in case, so I went looking for one of the many male flowers that was open and found this.

So nice to see!

I picked a different one to hand pollinate the single female flower. One of the bees flew off, but the other stayed, even as I moved around the male flower stamen, then broke it off and left it in the flower, so the bee could do the rest.

This next slide show is the first time I’ve been able to upload a slide show and have every single photo work! After this, I had to do one photo at a time, because every group upload was thoroughly corrupted.

I really, really hope we have a long mild fall, because we suddenly have SO many new melons forming, along with the two big ones. The vines are so mixed up, there’s no way to tell which variety is which right now. There are many more female flowers and tiny melons that forming. If the weather holds, we might have a bumper crop!

Even the winter squash is seeing an increase. For example…

This is one of two Boston Marrow vines. Both had a single squash starting to form, but the one on this plant suddenly started to rot away. You can even see it in the photo. I broke it off but left it to break down where it was.

Now there are three female flowers blooming – and not a single male flower to be seen! At least not another Boston Marrow male flower. I ended up hand pollinating them with a nearby North Georgia Candy Roaster. With that combination, if we actually get something to harvest, I’d want to save the seeds. That sounds like it would make an interesting hybrid!

Speaking of which…

The candy roasters are doing really, really well. Check out this big beast of a squash!

I noticed a few small squash that were being eaten by slugs, but they seem to be leaving the big ones alone. Likely because the skins are harder.

When I saw an open flower with what I thought might be another bee in it, I found several slugs, isntead.

I picked he flower and stepped on it. Slugs have been such a problem this year!

The pink bananas are also doing very well. Not only are there a lot of huge squash like this, but lots of smaller ones, plus they are still blooming and producing both male and female flowers!

I noticed that one of the Honeyboat Delicata squash that hadn’t even bloomed all year, suddenly has both male and female flowers budding. Even the Winter Sweet plant that had nothing going on – the other one has a single developing squash – suddenly had a female flower blooming! I had to use another type of winter squash to hand pollinate it, though.

We’re at the end of August, though. Average first frost date is September 10. Long range forecast says we should have a high of 23C/73F that day, with a low of 13C/55F. In fact, if the monthly long range forecast is right, we won’t see frost until near the end of October. If that holds true (thanks to El Nino!), that will another 50 days or so to our growing season! That would make a huge, positive difference for the garden.

As for today, there’s a limited amount of work I can do outside right now. We’ve got high winds today. We’ve had predictions for everything from a thunderstorm this afternoon, to rain this morning (we didn’t get any), so rain overnight, to no rain at all.

This morning, when I saw the predictions for a storm, I checked the radar. I would see the system coming our way but, sure enough, by the time it reached our area it dissipated and split up around our weird “climate bubble”.

Which works out. We’ve decided to do my husband’s birthday dinner today, and he asked for take out pizza from a specific restaurant in town. He didn’t get his prescriptions delivered yesterday, as they were missing something, but it’ll be ready today, so I’ll be picking those up first, plus hitting the grocery store for a few things, before picking up the pizzas – which my daughter is kindly paying for as her birthday gift! My husband’s main disability payment came in today and normally I’d be going into the city for another stock up shopping trip, but I’ll do that tomorrow, I think.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be watching the trees outside our windows closely, in case another one comes down in the wind!

The Re-Farmer

Who are you? Plus kitty update

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With the increasing heat over the next while, and no rain in site, I made sure to water the garden beds this evening. While the sprinkler was going in the main garden area, I used a watering can and the rain barrel by the sun room to water the south garden beds. The barrel was no longer full, but with the potatoes harvested, and other beds not needing watering anymore, it was enough to water what needed it, and not be stretching to fill the can at the bottom of the barrel.

As I was going back and forth around the rain barrel and the old kitchen garden, I was keeping an eye out for the missing ladies. I didn’t see them (though I did get to catch and cuddle a tiny black kitten, who was not happy to be caught!), but I did see someone else on a path in the old kitchen garden. Later, it moved to the area by the back water tap, and I was able to get a better picture.

I don’t recognize this cat.

I keep wracking my brain, trying to remember if one of last year’s kittens had markings like this, and I just can’t. As far as I can tell, this is a stranger.

It was also making strange. It didn’t run off while I was around, but as soon as I seemed to go closer, it got up and moved away.

Along with the watering, I ended up picking a whole lot of tomatoes, including a couple of Black Beauties, though one had already fallen to the ground on its own. The Roma are really liking these temperatures. I had considered pulling the bush beans, but ended up picking some, instead. I did pull the peas, and just dropped them where they were growing. In the process, I found more volunteer tomatoes! There is a total of 8 there now. All but one of them would be Spoon tomatoes. One is growing where we had the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes growing last year, though it might be from the Mosaic Mix we had there the year before, at the same time we grew Spoon tomatoes for the first time.

While I was outside, I got a call from the Cat Lady. Which surprised the heck out of me, because she called my cell phone, and I actually got enough signal to have a conversation! Even with Wi-Fi calling, I usually either can’t make out most of the call, or it gets dropped.

She was about to go and pick up the ladies from the vet, and wanted to update me. The spays went well, but the vet was not happy with her. Apparently, Decimus was really engorged, which made the surgery more difficult and dangerous. It went well, but she’s going to need extra antibiotics, apparently. The vet thought that she had a litter of actively nursing kittens. When I dropped them off, I made a point of telling the person doing the intake that she had kittens that she was actively and aggressively weaning, and she was going to be very glad to not be nursing. Decimus had made no effort to come to her kittens all night, nor did she want to go in, in the morning. The last time she did, yesterday evening, just before we did the wet cat food, the kittens basically attacked her and knocked her to the ground, and she was hissing and batting at them. My daughter had to actually rescue Ghosty, who was in reach of Decimus’ teeth, because she kept trying to bite Ghosty’s face! Once I started doing the wet cat food, the kittens lost all interest in nursing.

The Cat Lady knew Decimus’ kittens were older and she wasn’t wanting to nurse them anymore, and tried to explain that to the vet, but I don’t think the vet believed her. The Cat Lady promised that the next batch would be all males!

The kitten was another one with issues. As an outside kitten, it was no surprise that she had ear mites, but apparently she had an ear infection of some kind, too. We saw no sign of a problem. She wasn’t even scratching at her ears. Apparently, when they tried to flush her ears, there was a lot of puss. !!! Also, she has weird ears.

In fact, the Cat Lady has been hearing that comment from various different vets in treating different cats from our place. They all have weird ears. It seems they are unusually narrow. One vet, while treating Augustus (who is doing great now, btw, and recovered well. Even Leo is getting over his pneumonia) had even said something about how the ears looked like the cats from [our hamlet], and wondered if they were related?

Probably.

In the past she’s taken the same cat from our place to several different vets in different town and, because the first one had commented about the weird ears, asked them to check the ears. They all said the same thing. The ears are weird!

I’m not sure what to make of that.

But it’s done. The three of them will stay with the Cat Lady for about a week before going to their new home. The lady that’s adopting them is still interested in having a 4th cat, and is considering taking Turmeric, too, after the first three are settled.

The kittens are doing just fine, too. Even they seem to be happier with no adult cats around; just TTT, who spends most of the day in her closet cave, sleeping.

Now, if only we could at least catch sight of Butterscotch, Nosencrantz and Marlee, that would make a very good end to our day!

The Re-Farmer

Three kitties gone, three still missing, and we have scaffolding!

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Well, it’s done.

Decimus, The Phantom and the kitten have been dropped off at the vet. They had to contact the Cat Lady for details, as I only knew about the spay, but not if they were getting anything else done, too. We did talk a bit about how the kitten might be too small to spay, but I had no idea what her actual weight was.

I didn’t get a chance to take photos. I put the wrong cat in the hard sided carrier. I thought The Phantom would have more issues, but nope. It was Decimus. Once in a soft sided carrier, she really tried to claw her way out, so it was a quick load into the car and off I went. I didn’t even stop to close the gate, and my daughter followed after me to take care of that for me.

It was a good thing I left early, because I drove right past the place. I knew I’d missed it, so I found a place to pull over and found it on the map. Turns out we’ve seen the place right from the road, but had no idea it was a vet clinic. We even somehow managed to miss seeing the great big sign in the yard in front of it! 😄

Once I was gone, my daughter brought the food bowls out again and took care of feeding the other cats, since the only way to maintain a fast for the three of them was to not have any food out at all for any of the cats.

Anyhow, the drop off went smoothly; even Decimus had calmed down by the time I got there. The Cat Lady has already picked up our carriers and will return them to us later. She’ll pick up the cats when they are done last this afternoon, though I’m not sure if they’re going straight to their new home for recovery, or if she’s taking them to her own home, first. I do know there is already a recovery and isolation area ready for them to stay at their new home for a couple of weeks, before they are allowed outside.

Speaking of outside, Phantom was really putting the cat proof screen to the test last night! She wanted outside so badly! But she also wanted love and cuddles. I think she’s going to be very happy in her new home, where she’ll be able to go in and out as she pleases, after her recovery period.

As for the cats that escaped out my window, there is still no sign of them. I’ll be heading outside fairly soon and hopefully I’ll see them at some point, but they weren’t around when my daughter fed them this morning. I even went out with a flash light last night before going to bed. Nothing.

So for now, I just have TTT and five kittens in my room with me. At this point, I don’t mind letting TTT go out and explore – she did that yesterday, and there were no issues. This morning, I caught her starting to dig around my pillow and got her off my bed before she could pee on it. Before I left, I scattered bins and packages and all sorts of things all over my bed to dissuade her from peeing on it.

It worked, but…

Yeah. There was a puddle on the puppy pad under my desk. Right next to the litter box with the new clay litter in it. She even dug around the puppy pad enough to pull it part way out from under the litter box. So now I’ve got two of the new larger size pads under there. One under the litter box and right against the wall. The other, partly under the litter box, but more in the area she seems to prefer to go on.

Of course, while I’m at my computer, she won’t go anywhere near it, but she won’t use any of the other litter boxes, either. I just don’t know what else I can do. After I caught her about to pee on my bed, I put her in a litter box, but she just wanted to get out of it. With other cats, I’ve caught them about to make a mess, picked them up and put them in a litter box, and they went right to using it. She holds it and waits for me to leave, instead.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After dropping the cats off at the vet in the smaller, closer city, I headed to the larger city to meet a guy about some scaffolding. We’d arranged a location to meet, but just had to finalize a time. He wife was having a medical procedure done this morning, so it depended on how long it took for her to recover enough to be released That worked out, since we were meeting at an A&W parking lot, and I got there early enough to finally have breakfast!

When we finally met up, he brought the scaffolding out and set it up, right there. I even climbed up on it, and was quite happy with how well it held my weight (it’s rated for far heavier than I am, but still…) and how stable it was. It also folds up nice and compact, fitting easily into the back of my mother’s car.

As he was putting it in the car for me, he asked me about the hamlet I’m from, and how long I’d lived there. I explained I grew up there, but have been back for only a few years.

Then we had a small world moment. The neighbors that lived across the road from us when I was growing up here turned out to be his godparents! They passed on during the years we were away, and the property sold, and he only remembered that they lived down a gravel road from the highway. It was nice to connect through mutual contacts, though.

So I now have a small scaffolding set up.

That would have made cleaning the eaves on the garage much more secure! The cross pieces can also fit side by side for a wider platform, and it cost me less than half what it would have cost for a new one. I even have a couple of boards that are long enough to go under the legs at each end, should we want to use it on softer ground, though these are intended for indoor use. The girls want to paint the basement ceiling this winter, and this will make that job much easier, too.

Now that I’m looking at the picture as I write this, I can see that the frame doesn’t really have an upside down or right side up. It could be used either way. It would change the height of the steps slightly, which might be desirable, depending on the job.

I’m happy with it.

Oh, I almost forgot. It was really nice and cool this morning, and we had the most amazing ground fog! No chance of taking photos, though, as I had a panicking cat in the back of the car. As I was driving the cats in, I’d go through a few clear, sunny patches, then drive into a wall of fog. It was so gorgeous, though at one point I had to slow down. I could no longer see my usual landmarks, and I wanted to make sure I saw the stop sign at the highway before I drove right through the intersection! I haven’t seen fog like that since we lived on the West coast!

Now, it’s time to head outside and see what I can get done before it gets too hot, and hopefully spot the missing ladies. We’re looking at a high of 24C/75F, and it’s just supposed to get hotter. The forecast for the weekend is insane. Either Saturday or Sunday (currently, it’s saying Saturday) is supposed to hit at least 30C/86F. Last night, the girls saw forecasted highs for Saturday of 37C/99F!!! That has since dropped to 31C/88F or 33C/91F. The weather forecasters can’t make up their mind. Either way, I want to get as much done outside as I can, before things get hotter over the next few days!

The Re-Farmer.

I forgot!

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I was in a hurry when doing the shopping post and completely forgot to post this picture.

While unloading into the house, I put my husband’s birthday cake on the counter.

When I came back later to put it in a better spot, I found I was too late.

A cat had sat on the lid!

The cat wasn’t after the cake, though. Right next to it was an insulated bag with the two hot rotisserie chickens in it. The cake was just in the way!

My husband found this hilarious.

The Re-Farmer

Stock up shop: this is what $800 looks like

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Well, the Costco shop was $800.10. I forgot to get a picture of the Walmart shop, which was done first. That one was $161.28

So I’ll do the Costco list first.

Yeah. That’s $800.10 right there.

*sigh*

There were a few things we don’t normally get, though. Like my husband’s birthday cake! He has a birthday coming up soon, and he asked for cake and lots of ice cream bars. 😄

So, this is the list, in the order that’s on the receipt.

Butter: 5 pounds at $5.49 each – way cheaper than anywhere else – for a total of $27.45
Flour, 10kg size: $9.99
KS Drawstring garbage bags: $21.99
Canned cat food: $38.99
Kirkland brand dry cat food (best price per kg); four 9kg bags: $26.99 each
Kirkland brand toilet paper: $22.99
Coke Zero: $14.69, plus 32¢ enviro fee
Birthday cake: $24.99
Lean ground beef: $30.85
Stewing beef: $32.89
Eye of Round: $29.40 (the price of beef is insane, even at Costco!)
Pork tenderloins: $18.77
Ice cream bars, variety pack: $19.99
Ice cream, almond bars: $15.99
Ice cream, Mega Sandwich pack: $16.99
Cheese; Mozza: $14.99
Cheese; Old Cheddar: $14.99
Cheese; cream, 4pk: $9.49
Iced tea mix: $9.99 (elsewhere, it costs anywhere from $12.99 to $15.99 that I’ve seen)
Bucket of Ghee: $41.99 (this is going to replace most of our cooking oils; we just can’t afford them, and Costco’s restaurant sized bucket of Ghee is an excellent price)
Hazelnuts: $11.49
Deodorant, 5pk: $14.99
Active dry yeast: $7.99 (with the new bread machine, we’re using it pretty much every day, so we need to stock up on yeast and flour now! 😊)
Toothbrushes: $16.99
AA batteries: regular price $25.99, but on sale for $19.99, + eco fee of $1.60
AAA batteries: same sale price of $19.99, + eco fee of 80¢
Arthritis acetaminophen pain killers: $19.99
24 hour allergy meds: $10.99
Ibuprofen, extra strength: $15.99
Butter chicken sauce, 2pk: $9.99
Spaghetti box: regular price, $13.49, on sale for $9.99
Tortillas, two 2pks: $9.99 each
Basmati rice: $15.99
Rotisserie chicken: 2 at $7.99 each

The subtotal for all that was $752.43, and the taxes came to $47.67 for the total of $800.10

That was really painful.

Then there was the stuff I got at Walmart. I went specifically for the puppy pads and carpet powder, but I also keep an eye out for other things, as needed. This time I got quite a few extras.

KD, 12pk: $9.47 That was an excellent sale price. KD is something the girls like for a quick cooking meal.
Ramen noodles, 24pk: $6.48 They were on sale for 27¢ each, which is almost pre-pandemic insanity price.
Clumping cat litter: $8.47 I really hope it works with TTT. The dust, just from opening the container, was insane. I so prefer the stove pellets as litter!
Argan oil: $7.97
Carpet powder, odor eliminator: $4.47
Carpet powder, deodorizing: $3.97
Soaker pad: $17.97 – to protect the new mattress cover!
Waterproof mattress cover, king size: $49.97
Puppy pads, 30″x30″: $26.97 With the bigger size, I need only one to cover the space under the desk
litter pan: $9.97 Since I took the one from the cat cage in the sun room to use under my desk, I needed to replace it, for when we have to keep cats before they go for spays and neuters.

Subtotal: $145.71
GST: $6.49
PST: $9.08
Total: $161.28

With having to get all the extra stuff to protect my bed, this was almost all “extra” purchases. Which is really frustrating that we have to do this.

TTT is now back in my room and tucked into her napping cave in my closet. I would be really, really happy if she started using the new litter! She always waits until I’m asleep before she goes, though, so I won’t know until morning.

And that’s our first stock up shopping trip for the month.

After I take the cats in to the vet clinic tomorrow morning, I’m heading into the city to meet a guy selling some small scaffolding. I might take advantage of that and swing by Costco to pick up 4 more bags of kibble. Then we’ll have to make another trip into the city to get the rest of our stocking up, including more litter pellets, and maybe even some more *gasp* groceries for ourselves!

These price increases are getting harder and harder to keep up with. With a fixed income, we’re running out of wiggle room. Especially since we expect to have car payments before winter. We so need a van. Having to make multiple trips, because we can only fit so much into my mother’s car, is a killer on the gas budget. Her car has horrible mileage, too!

Well, time to do my outside rounds before I have to tuck away any food that’s left in the kibble bowls in my room, for the overnight fasting.

It’s been a very long day.

The Re-Farmer

Morning disaster

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It could have been worse, though.

What a start to the morning.

No disaster with this kitten. This kitten was adorable and friendly, and decided my daughter’s fingers were delicious.

I was up rather early, after a restless night. I’m happy to say that I didn’t wake up by rolling over into a puddle on my bed, but there was a mess under my desk, right next to the litter box, instead. It was on the puppy pads, at least, but those were the last of them, so I set up the fan to blow on the area the messes are always on and hoped for the best until I could get more.

Today was our day to do a Costco run, but I wanted to clean the litter boxes after doing the morning wet cat food feeding, first. As I was mulling about, I could hear a kitten plaintively meowing outside my window. I looked out, but couldn’t see anything. It was too close to the wall.

To do the wet cat food, I lay out a towel on the end of my bed, then line up all the food bowls. At this point, all of the cats and kittens know what’s going on, and the kittens are crawling all over the towel and the food bowls. TTT is always with the kittens, while Marlee starts meowing from her perch on the window shelf, and Butterscotch and Nosencrantz start milling around the floor. With The Phantom in the room now, she has started to jump up on the bed in anticipation, too.

But not this morning. I only saw TTT with the milling kittens.

I looked around, but couldn’t see the other cats anywhere. I could still hear a kitten meowing plaintively outside, though, so I stuck my head in the window to look again.

I could see the kitten this time, milling around the cap of the septic tank.

Which is when I realized I was seeing way to clearly though the open window.

The screen was gone.

It was on the floor, below.

At that point, everything else planned when out the window. I let the girls know what happened, and they were able to head outside right away while I quickly got dressed. I did a head count on the kittens, and one of the tabbies was missing – that was the kitten I was hearing outside! There are so many others that look like it, I didn’t realize it was one of the inside kittens. Thankfully, it was not the kitten that’s slated to go to the vet tomorrow morning!

The girls got the kitten very quickly and one of them brought it in to me. My other daughter found The Phantom and got her inside. They both went back outside while I eventually got The Phantom to come to me and put her back in the isolation ward with the kittens, then went outside with the girls.

The main thing was that the cats due to go to the vet were all accounted for. But that left Butterscotch, Nosencrantz and Marlee outdoors.

I did see Nosencrantz, lurking under my window, but when she saw me, she went around the house. The girls tried to come closer, but she ran off to the outer hard, by the fire pit, with another cat.

While they kept looking, I put food out for the outside cats, hoping the sound of kibble hitting the trays would get their attention.

No such luck.

Eventually, we had to stop looking. I came back into my room and found The Phantom was really putting the cat proof screen mesh to the test. The window was now closed, but she was really trying to get out! I left my room back outside to look around again. When I came back, I found the kittens had discovered places they could climb that they’d never tried for before. Things were knocked about, and one kitten was at the top of the wall shelf. One of my display heads, and the hat it was wearing, was knocked onto my bed, and the kitten was milling about around an antique lamp that’s up there to be safe from the cats!

Then I saw the wet spot, in the middle of my bed.

I messaged a daughter to give me a hand. The first thing I had to do was get that kitten off the top of the shelf! I managed to get that done before my daughter got to my room, so she helped me strip my bed, including the mattress cover. Thankfully, I’d put puppy pads under the mattress cover, so the mattress itself was protected.

After that, my younger daughter had to finish packing for her house sitting venture, then we headed out. I was really glad she was with me and could respond to messages with my SIL. We were supposed to meet at a restaurant for lunch, but she mentioned the name of a different one than the one we’d met at last time. She was already there and letting us know what table she was at! So my daughter was able to clarify just which location we were at. We kept getting mixed up with restaurant names that started with S. 😄 At least it was easy to spot her car when we got there, and I was able to park right behind it.

After a lovely lunch (breakfast, for me), we moved my daughter’s stuff to my SIL’s car and we parted ways.

My first stop was the Walmart, since I had to pick up more puppy pads. I’ll do a separate post on the shopping. Then I did the Costco shopping, which was insanely expensive, before heading home.

Once at home and everything was unloaded and put away and the ground floor litter boxes cleaned (since I didn’t get to do them this morning!), I emptied 3 bags of kibble into the kibble bin, then fed the outside cats.

No sign of Marlee, Butterscotch or Nosenctrantz.

I’m not too concerned about Butterscotch. She was here when we moved in, so she would remember that this house is home, and the yard is a reliable place for food. She is, however, getting old and the indoor life has made her soft, so she’s at predator risk, if she goes too far. Same with Nosencrantz. She was an outside cat, and our yard was all she knew before coming indoors, so I don’t expect the Anxiety Bear to wander too far, but she’s been indoors for quite a long time now!

Marlee is the one that really concerns me. She was getting used to being around Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, but then the kittens got big enough to be active, and she really didn’t like Decimus and the kittens. Then TTT joined us for recovery, and she didn’t like the new addition. Finally, another kitten and The Phantom came in. Decimus, the kitten and Phantom are leaving tomorrow morning, but Marlee was just so unhappy with them being there, I’m afraid she won’t want to come back! She did survive on her own for 2 years, but she doesn’t know to at least stay close to the house, for food, water and shelter. With so many other cats and kittens around, she may not want to come over at all, though I do make sure there are kibble bowls set up further from the house, for the shier cats. Hopefully, she won’t wander too far.

I’ll go outside again to look for them when I do my evening rounds.

Meanwhile, we need to make sure that Decimus, The Phantom and the kitten don’t eat after 9pm. We usually do the evening feeding at around 8, so that should be okay. I have to be on the road by 7:30am to get them to the clinic, so the fast won’t be too onerous. I just have to make sure someone does the morning feeding in the isolation ward after I’m gone.

It’ll be just the kittens at that point, probably. While I was going in and out of my room, with kittens trying to escape, TTT politely asked to leave the room, so I let her. She’s been wandering around the house and, to my amazement, none of the other cats are bothering her! Not even Turmeric, who has gone out of her way to hunt down Nosencrantz, any time she’s managed to get into my room. She’s the main reason Nozencratnz stopped leaving my room in the first place. After she and Butterscotch recovered from being spayed, we started leaving my door open, and for the first while it was fine. Then suddenly, Turmeric just decided to go after Nozencrantz and that was it.

If TTT is fine with the other cats, there’s no reason to keep her in my room. I just hope she figured out to use the litter boxes there. She’ll have many to choose from.

I even got clumping clay litter for the litter box under my desk, as the tech that removed her staples suggested trying.

*sigh*

I really hope the cats are okay outside. I’d rather they weren’t, but they might actually be happier out there. I just want them to at least stay close to the house! At least we got The Phantom inside. Once she’s at her new home, and has spent 2 weeks indoors in the barn that will be home base, she will be free to go indoors or outdoors as she wants.

As an aside, while I was writing this, Shadow in the Dark climbed up on my chest. After watching my cursor move on my screen for a while, she curled up and is now asleep under my neck. I think Shadow was the kitten that got outside this morning.

It most definitely could have been much worse.

Oh, while I was in the city, my husband checked on the my room frequently. He also made a change on the window screen. It is designed to be removed by pressing downwards, then pulling the top inwards. That’s what Nosencrantz managed to do just by scratching at it. The simple solution is to just put the screen in upside down. It now requires being pushed up to free the bottom; something a cat isn’t going to be able to do.

That’s something I should have done after we switched to the cat free mesh. Until recently, the box fan had been in the window. The cats couldn’t get at the screen, so I didn’t bother.

*sigh*

Live and learn, I guess.

The Re-Farmer

So many kitties, and trellis bed progress

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I headed out this afternoon, and got distracted by many adorable fluff balls.

I’ve only recently started using Instagram to upload my photos, since I’m running out of storage space on my WordPress account. WP does allow the purchase of extra storage space, without having to upgrade plans, but the cost for 50G is Cdn$68.54 PER MONTH!!!! – billed yearly. Which is insane. If I upgraded my plan to Business, it would cost Cdn$33/month, billed yearly, and that would come with 50G of storage.

So… uploading to Instagram it is.

The problem is, when I upload photos – especially groups of photos – the images are often corrupted. They seem fine right up until I hit “share”, and when I check them, there’s often something wrong with them. Some are so bad, most of the photo can’t even be made out. I thought the issue might be my computer, but when I double checked using my phone, the images were still corrupted. Today, I had to reload this next batch of photos three times before it worked, and even then, the third one is corrupted. At least it’s still visible, though!

These were my distractions.

That orange and white kitten is successfully socialized, and absolutely adorable. The tuxedo in Baby Jail is not socialized at all! I am happy that they are going in and out of the cage comfortably, though. If we ever need to suddenly keep a cat in there until we can take it somewhere, they will already be comfortable in the space.

Octomom’s babies are all over the place these days. The one using a brick as a pillow is just too adorable!

After I took those photos, I started walking slowly in between the cat shelters, and the orange and white kitten came over. I was able to pet him and pick him up, and he was purring up a storm. This made the littles very curious, and they started to come out from under the cat house to see what was going on. That they were willing to come within a couple of feet of me was quite encouraging.

I had to tear myself away from the kittens and get to work! It’s taken forever for me to get back to those poplars I cut for the vertical supports on the trellis beds.

I cut the logs to about 7’2″ lengths, in case the bottom ends need to be trimmed flat. In the first photo is the finished stack of 7′ lengths. I got three out of one log. Most of them got me two lengths. In the corner of the photo is the stack of log ends, or sections that were just too crooked to use.

It was as I was finishing up that I realized I was feeling really dizzy and getting the shakes. It was hot, yes, but “only” about 23C/73F Then I remembered.

I’d had a late breakfast, so when I lay down for a nap at about lunch time, I didn’t eat first. I forgot to eat something before heading outside.

Because I’m an idiot that way.

So I quickly cleaned up then headed in for some food.

When I came back out, I had to figure out the best way to get the logs to where the trellis beds are going to be. I got out the loppers and started clearing a path through the spruce grove. At one point, I had to get the baby chain saw to cut away a fallen tree that was half buried in the grass.

Once I was reasonably sure there weren’t any branches, bushes or small trees to get tangled on, I grabbed a log and carried it over. It was one of the bigger ones, but I could carry it on my shoulder easily enough. The problem was the distance. There was no way I was going to be able to carry them all out like that, without wearing myself out too quickly.

So for the other larger logs, I grabbed a rope to drag them with, which you can see in the second picture.

Of course, if I’m going to do this to make it easier on myself, I really need to make sure there are no stumps of branches to dig into the ground! I adjusted the rope to turn the log a couple of times. In the third photo, you can see all the grass that had been pulled up by what turned out to be two “anchors” on the log! After I got those facing up, the rest of the drag went much more smoothly!

I also took a video of it, to give an idea of just how far the logs need to be carried. For this, I chose a log light enough that I could carry it with one hand, while taking video with the other.

Also, my phone’s microphone really picks up the sound of my breathing! 😄

There’s a brief pause as I show were I had to clear the fallen tree. Just a little one, but too long to just move aside.

In the end, I was only able to move three lengths over. I used the rope to drag the third, bigger one over, after I took the video. It was just too hot for that kind of work. I can’t handle the heat like I used to!

I’m going to have to work on moving these early in the morning, before things get hot. I won’t be able to do much over the next couple of days. Tomorrow, not only am I going into the city for our first monthly stock up shop, but I’m losing a daughter for almost a month. She’ll be house sitting for my brother and his wife while they go on a trip of a lifetime, and going over early so they can show her what she needs to do and what to keep an eye on. So I’m losing one of the more able bodied members of our household!

Looking at the long range forecast, though, I see things have changed. We’re going to be getting hotter again. There’s even a forecast of 30C/86F on the weekend!

Which will be great for the garden. Especially for the squash and melons. The longer we have with warmer temperatures and no frost, the better our chances of having something to harvest.

Well, I’ll figure out what to do during the heat. We really need to get progress done on those beds! Plus, if I can get enough dead spruces cut down, I hope to get more high raised beds built, too, replacing some of the current low raised beds.

At the rate we’ve been going, though, I’ll be lucky to get just one trellis bed done!

The Re-Farmer

Sleepy bees, and so many bebbies!

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Last time, I spotted one sleepy bee on the volunteer sunflower.

This morning, there were two!

They were very sluggishly moving around in the cool of the morning. I believe we were around 16C/61F at the time I took this photo.

I also got to see all eight of Octomom’s babies this morning. They were certainly not sleepy!

It looks like there will be at least 2 long haired tabbies in the bunch. I’m really, really hoping we can socialize these ones, while they are still so small. It gets harder, the bigger they get!

I also saw the kitten that lost its eye. It’s actually looking much better. It had been stuck shut, yesterday, but today it was wide open. There was still some gunk under the lower lid. I got a picture of it looking straight at me, so once the photo was uploaded, I could get a good look. The inner eyelids were visible and a healthy pink colour. Even the tissue behind was a healthy looking pink, rather than that alarming white colour it was before. I won’t post the picture here, but if you do want to see, I’ve posted it on our Ko-fi page.

I also saw that “new” kitten I caught a glimpse of, earlier! It kept running away, so I wasn’t able to get a picture, bit it is most definitely a calico. More of a muted calico. Instead of black, it has really dark grey patches. I saw it with another white kitten with really dark grey patches, but I think I’ve seen that one before, and that it’s from another litter. I’m not sure, though.

As for the cats that are now indoors, The Phantom is quite enjoying love and attention. TTT, however, is just a bundle of nerves. She loves attention, but just can’t sit still, then runs off, like she did when she was still outside.

Also, she is such a long, skinny, snake-like cat! So very gangly!

Last night, it seems the rosemary I sprinkled on my mattress actually helped. Even the kittens mostly stayed off of it. Between that and the fan, my mattress was finally dry. I decided to actually make the bed (with some strategically places puppy pads under the mattress cover, just in case) and not sleep on the couch again.

It was… less painful, at least. As far as the bed went, anyhow.

Not so much when it came to kittens.

I did not get much sleep last night.

I still kept the fan going on low, which is now set up on my craft table. I tried turning it off, but the room immediately became way too stuffy, even though the window was open. So I turned it back on, and basically used my sheet to block the wind from hitting my face and ears; wind in my ears causes horrible ear aches. Unfortunately, the kittens saw the sheet on my face as fair game, so when they had their run-around-like-crazy time of the night, they would sometimes run right over my face!

Once they settled, though, I still had a hard time sleeping. I was constantly paranoid that I would roll over into a huge puddle.

Well, that didn’t happen.

Instead, this morning, I found a huge puddle under my desk. TTT had dug around the puppy pads, so while she managed to wet three of them, she also left a huge puddle on the carpet. While cleaning that up, I found a kitten sized “gift” in a corner behind the litter tray. I ended up having to take out all the puppy pads I had under there. Then I used the last of the puppy pads to protect the floor. I won’t be able to get more until tomorrow.

I was very nervous doing my morning rounds. Especially as I stayed out longer to harvest onions. Once inside, I made breakfast and ate in the cat free zone, so that was even more time out of my room. I truly expected to come in and find a big wet spot on my bed again. I’m happy to report, it’s still clean and dry!

In fact, I might even try and get some of that sleep I missed out on last night. I’m falling asleep in my chair right now!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 Garden: partial onion harvest

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One of the problems we’ve had is cats getting into the garden beds. They seemed to especially enjoy laying down on the onions!

As a result, we have a lot of onions with broken stems. Under normal circumstances, that would be a sign that the onions are maturing and ready to be harvested. If the stems are prematurely broken, the plants act as if they’ve reached maturity and won’t get any bigger.

I have been leaving them for the last while, which gives them time to develop that thicker, dry outer skin, but I didn’t want to leave them too long. So today, I harvested the first batch.

This is almost all of our yellow onions, though I did leave the ones that did not have broken stems. Normally, I would not have laid them out with the greens facing in and overlapping like that, but if the greens were hanging off the edges, they’d be way too tempting for cats to play with and drag around! Onions are toxic to cats, so we don’t want any sort of temptation like that.

After a couple of days, we’ll braid them and hang them in the cat free zone inside, aka our living room.

The potatoes that had been curing on these screens were put in cardboard boxes to store and are now also in the cat free zone. We’ll have to eat them fairly quickly. I didn’t bother picking over them to separate any for the root cellar. There just isn’t enough to make that worthwhile.

I did use some of the red potatoes with breakfast. I now know that the Red Thumb potatoes are not really suitable for making hash browns. 😄 They really wanted to mash, instead! Still tasted good, though!

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, morning kitties

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What a difference a warmer night makes!

Quite a few of the Roma VF could be harvested, and there was even a fair bit of beans to pick. I found a single ripe Black Beauty, and a couple of Indigo Blues. The Black Beauties are determinates, so when they finally start ripening for real, there should be lots of them all at once, like the Roma, but gosh, they’re taking a long time to get there! We might end up harvesting them all to ripen indoors, if the weather doesn’t hold.

Not too much action with the summer squash. There are a lot of female yellow patty pans blooming, which I’m hand pollinating, so we should have more of those later, but it looks like the green patty pans are almost done, and the green zucchini… well, those never really did recover from the slugs.

Meanwhile, we’re seeing all sorts of kittens around. In fact, last night, I think I spotted two “new” kittens, including a calico! Definitely much older kittens. We have never seen Sprout’s babies, so those might be hers. They ran off before I could get a good look at them.

Some of the older kittens, while still quite shy, are at least letting me come a bit closer before they run away. When it comes to feeding them, that usually means dashing under the water bowl shelter for the kibble tray there. That one is a favourite for all the kittens. Especially the littlest ones. Those would be Octomom’s kittens, and they were hanging out under the cat house, waiting their turn at the tray.

In the photo above, the tuxedo on the left is the one that lost its eye. The lids now appear to be closed, and it looks gummy, but it’s hard to tell. It will not let me come any closer than I did when I got the picture.

With so many cats and kittens showing up at different times, I have given up entirely on trying to get a head count. While the kittens may be closer to the house, a lot of the adults seem to be moving on. I haven’t even seen Gooby in a while, and he used to be among those that greeted me every morning. Now I’ve got a couple of white and grey males that are my morning greeters.

When it comes to the yard cat population, the adults seem to not like being around when it starts to get too crowded, and simply move on to new territory.

At least, that’s what I hope they’re doing. There’s no way to know what’s happened to them, once they disappear. I like to think they found new homes on their own, on one of the neighboring farms.

The Re-Farmer