So, I ended up having to make a trip into town this morning.

This bugger is part of the reason why.

If she would only let us near her, Brussel could be adopted out right away! She’s such a beauty, too, even if she does look ready to bite off my face. 😂

It’s interesting how the different cats have their preferred eating spaces. I try to spread things out, both inside the sun room and outside. I started putting kibble on the well cap, and the calicos – especially Brussel, here – prefer to eat there over the kibble house or the cat house roof. They almost never go into the sun room, or even the cat house. I don’t know where they hide out during the day, but I think it’s somewhere in the outer yard. Brussel will at least come to the well cap and closer to the house, regularly. Her sister, Sprout, barely even does that, and prefers to eat under the shrine – and even then, only after I am well away!

It’s chillier out, so the yard cats need more food than in the summer, which means we were running out of kibble again. Even with giving them lighter feedings, the bin would have been emptied this evening. I could have taken from the bin for the inside cats, but that one was getting low, and I didn’t want to empty it, too. The problem is, my husband’s CPP Disability payment doesn’t come in until tomorrow, which is when I will be doing our Costco shopping trip. His SunLife payment comes in on the last business day of the month, so that’s when I’ll go into the city again to do the other stock up shopping. I could have juggled some numbers; when I worked out the budget for the month, I always round up, so that there is wiggle room. Unfortunately. At least there would be, if there weren’t some odd purchases coming out. For example, for the second month in a row now, we got two Audible payments processed. One appears to be from a Canadian account, and one from a US account. My husband has an Audible subscription, but only one, so why are we being billed twice, with one clearly being converted from US dollars? I’ll have to call the bank about that and see what’s going on.

Anyhow.

My daughter was a sweetheart and was able to send an e-transfer that was enough to get some more kibble. We also just switched out one of our 18.9L/5 gallon drinking water jugs, so we had two empties that I refilled as well.

After I was done at the grocery store, I started the truck and the check engine line was on again. So I turned it off and set up the OBDII scanner. I didn’t do a full scan, though. The one we have now allows other options, including scanning just the check engine light. It took maybe a minute or two, and I got the same codes as before, that I already talked to our mechanic about. This is a “too rich fuel” reading that turns itself on and off. When it was on before and I got him to check it, he said it should clear itself. Which it did, after I filled the tank. Then it turned on again after another top up, only to be off the next time I used the truck. It’s been off ever since, until today. This time, when I cleared the codes, it turned off and it stayed off.

While doing a scan, the engine is off, but the key is in the half way position, where you can use the electrical system and see the displays on the console. Which is why I got a surprise warning on the onboard computer.

“Battery is low. Please start the engine.”

!!!???

Again????

Of course, this battery is brand new and was fully charged when it was installed. I started the engine, and the battery gauge showed me it was charging just fine. The alternator is not the problem.

Since it was just across the road, I drove over to the garage to talk to our mechanic – leaving the engine running while I went in!

He is perplexed. He’s gone over the truck a few times, now, and he can’t think of anything that would be draining the battery. I know we didn’t have any lights left on or anything like that. It’s not the first vehicle he’s encountered that would have these warnings come up, for no reason he could find. The last one he had it happen on was an Escalade. After talking to him for a while, it basically came down to, watch and see, and if it happens again, call him.

As we were talking, he remembered a gadget he now carries that he thinks we might want to pick up. A portable booster. We have booster cables, but they’re not much good if you don’t have another vehicle to connect with. Especially living in the boonies like we do. The one he showed me was a power pack with booster cables as well as other things, like the ability to charge devices with USB. Something like that would definitely be good to have in our vehicle emergency kit! I’ve since had a chance to look some of these up, and found a larger portable device that included an air compressor as well. The price was good, too, though it’s not something we can get any time soon with our current budget.

The truck seemed just fine in all other respects. For all I know, it could be a sensor issue.

While there, I remembered to ask about my seatbelt problem. He remembered I’d asked him about it in a text, but wasn’t sure what I was talking about. I described to him how the driver’s side seatbelt just doesn’t want to click into place. I keep having to push and wiggle and push again until the buckle finally latches – though I’ve had it come undone a couple of times, even then. Never while driving, though, but immediately after it latched and I was adjusting the seatbelt tension around my body.

This is not something he normally fixes at all. He did have a suggestion I didn’t even think of. Use a flashlight and see if something had fallen into where the latch is. Yeah, that could cause the problem! Then, if we didn’t find anything obvious, try a bit of WD40. Something to do tomorrow, before I head into the city.

Meanwhile, once I got home and things were brought inside, I was able to give the cats another light feeding, so I could safely drive the truck out of the yard and park it in the garage!

We need to do something about these cats. I counted 34 or 35 this morning. We’re spending more on cat food now than we are on truck payments. It may even be more than we are spending on actual food for ourselves. Our trips to the grocery store usually includes non-food items, like household products, persona hygiene products and the like. With how much food prices are going up, we haven’t been able to get the extra stock up items of the pantry the way we used to. I’ve even tried looking up Canadian wholesale pet food suppliers, and the few places I found that had online sales, the prices were no better than retail prices in the stores, so there’s no point. Even Amazon prices are higher than what I can get at Costco. I suppose I could go to that livestock feed store again and get the 16kg bags they carry that’s cheap, but the quality is so low, even the outside cats didn’t like to eat it. It’s much the same with the economy bags of kibble at Walmart. Sure, it’s cheaper per kg, but that doesn’t mean much if the quality sucks so much, the cats don’t want to eat it unless they’re practically starving. Which means it’s also likely to be quite unhealthy for them, too.

But what can we do? This year, we actually have people wanting to adopt some of our outdoor female cats as mousers on their own property, and they’ve have a better living situation than we can give them, but we have been unsuccessful in socializing them – and no one wants male yard cats, who are more likely to roam, no matter how friendly they are, it seems. It’s gotten to the point where we are going to have to seriously consider looking at how to humanely euthanize them. We could contact the municipality, and they’d send someone over with a rifle. Which can be humane, but only if they are a really good shot! Even then, no matter how good a shot they are, these are small, moving targets.

I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but the situation is getting untenable. It’s not just a matter of the cost of feeding them. It’s not healthy for them, either. The more there are, the more sick cats there will be – and we’ve lost so many more this year, than any year before! Without those losses – the ones we know of! – we’d probably have more like 50 yard cats right now.

*sigh*

I hope to be able to talk to the Cat Lady about it before any decisions are made. They’re moving to a new home seems to be falling through. They got financing for the new house, but have not been able to sell the old one. They’ve had many offers, and every one has fallen through. People just have not been able to get financing. They have until the end of the month. If they don’t get a buyer before then, they have to give up the new place and stay where they are. Meanwhile, they are still paying to board almost all their own cats, too!

Which reminds me. One of the sick kittens they took from us, got vet care for, then adopted out, came back. This is the white and grey one. While it was recovered, it was going to have a lifetime of relapses, which would have required antibiotics probably a couple of times a year. Which turned out to be too much for the woman who adopted him. So, the Cat Lady said she’d take him back. !!! Their dog is very happy about this, it seems. They had really bonded, and he was clearly missing him. This was a kitten that they fell in love with and really struggled to say good bye to. This does however, make the 5th cat from us, if I remember correctly, that they are keeping permanently! I’m afraid to tell her about any other cats or kittens we have to adopt out! By the time they get the cats fixed and get vet care, too many of them are turning out to have invisible health problems, and no one wants to adopt them. They also have pair of bonded kittens from us that they tried to adopt out together, but one of them turned out to have heart problems, so they’re keeping both.

*sigh*

Once their situation settles down, I’ll talk to the Cat Lady again about borrowing a trap and trying to get some of the female yard cats. This has been a mild enough winter, we could risk it. We could even rig up shelter around the trap somehow, but we really need to try and get them caught and spayed before they go into heat again.

It’s either that, or we start looking into more permanent actions, and I really don’t want to go that route.

The Re-Farmer