Some time ago, he showed up with his cheek badly injured, a flap of skin torn off and hanging. While he would sometimes allow me to pet him while he was eating, he wouldn’t let me get a good look at him, and certainly not anywhere near the injury. For weeks, he’s had a piece of dead skin dangling off his face, but that finally fell off a few days ago.
This picture is one of the best looks I’ve been able to get of it for quite a long time. There’s no doubt that he’s going to have a massive scar there, but it seems to be closing up and healing well.
That cat is indestructible!
After I got this picture, while he and the other cats had gathered around for breakfast, I tried for a head count.
Oh.
My.
Goodness.
My first count was 44.
That’s right. Forty Four!
My second count was 37, and then 40, but I’m pretty sure that first count was accurate, and that some cats hid on me when I tried counting again.
One of these mornings, I should try to count just kittens and just adult cats. Not an easy task, but it would give me a better idea of how many of the adult cats have disappeared over the summer.
That is totally insane and unsustainable.
The rescue is helping us as much as they can, but with so few people adopting or donating for spays and neuters, there’s only so much they can help with.
Meanwhile, the girls just updated me on how treating and feeding eye baby went. I was just too exhausted and in too much pain to help out tonight. His eye still looks really horrible, but is definitely getting better. We have some plain eye drops – the same that’s used on humans for dry eyes – that we can at least use on the messed up eye. It doesn’t seem to be bothering him or slowing him down in any way, and he is just as active and playful as any of the other kittens. A real trooper!
Given that he is a descendent, direct or otherwise, of Shop Towel, I suppose that’s not a surprise!
I also got some updated on Button from the Cat Lady. Not only have they had to put a bell on him, but now have post it notes all over the place, including the bottom freezer drawer on their fridge, reminding people to check for Button before closing things. He’s just way too tiny!
There is a possible cause for this, though I am just guessing. He has been dewormed and massive amounts of them are being cleared out of his system and into his litter box. She’s never seen anything like it before!
Just a little bit longer and, as long as there isn’t any sudden backing out on the arrangement, he’ll be ready to go to his forever home.
It has been a bit longer than usual since I’ve actually done a morning harvest. With all the stuff going on for the past while, I lost track of time! I do try to harvest at least every other day. Since I’m in the habit of taking pictures what I harvest, unless it’s just one or two tomatoes or something like that, I checked the dates on my photos. Turns out, I haven’t done a harvest in 4 days!
In the photo are a few San Marzano tomatoes at the top, some black cherry tomatoes, and a nice bunch of Forme de Couer tomatoes. I had to battle some very spiky stems to reach those G Star patty pan squash! With the beans, there are all three varieties in there, including a very decent amount of the Royal Burgundy bush beans – but this is the first time I picked any of the green Seychelle beans from the main garden area, and not just from the trellis over the Crespo squash. I had planted some Seychelles in the gaps where the purple Carminat beans failed to germinate, but I think only 3 Seychelle germinated. However many there were, there’s only one plant left, and it’s finally producing beans!
Among the Carminat beans, I found a couple that had gotten too big to harvest; they would no longer be tender, so I left them on the vine. There probably isn’t time enough, but who knows. They might fully mature and give me a few seeds I can plant next year! This is definitely a variety that grows well here, and we do enjoy them, so we do want to grow them again.
Of course, along with checking on the garden, I checked on the kitties. After setting the food out, I tried to do a head count.
I counted 34 cats and kittens.
*sigh*
I don’t even want to think of how many there would be, if we hadn’t lost so many kittens this year, and at least one adult. There are other adult cats that I haven’t seen in a while, but they may come back and stay for the winter. Some of them, anyhow.
Eye baby is pretty active among the kittens, but also has her favourite place to hang out, in the cat cage.
Which she can’t do right now, because I took that cat bed out to give it a wash!
Her cuddle buddy doesn’t seem to care, either way! This bigger kitten seems to be rather protective of eye baby.
Or just likes to use her for a pillow.
~~~~~ pause for interruptions and treating of eye baby~~~~~
I’m back!
We just gave eye baby her daily dose of antibiotics, and a feeding of cat soup from the modified bottle. I did something a bit different, this time.
I remembered we were gifted one of those mixers, where you can make individual size smoothies or whatever. I used that to make the cat soup. It worked. We had zero issues of bits paté clogging the nipple.
Why didn’t we think of this before? 😄
I still don’t know what to make of that eye. I think it’s getting better overall, but I also still think the eye itself is lost.
Oh, and we have determined something else. At least I did, only just now, when I let eye baby back out in the sun room.
She, is a he.
The girls had been able to determine that when they took care of the cats outside recently. A couple of the kittens, including eye baby, decided to roll onto their backs and give a good view. The other kitten was female, but eye baby is definitely a little boy.
But I am getting ahead of myself!
Aside from my usual morning routine, I had a day “off” today. A friend of mine from another province is in town right now, and we had a lunch date!
After getting one of the girls to distract the outside cats away from the truck with some treats, I headed to town a bit early. There was a store I wanted to check out, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. What I did get, however, was clear Gorilla tape. That will be very useful in setting the “greenhouse” around the eggplant and hot pepper bed. I’m hoping that the two clear shower curtains, or the two clear table protectors, with be long enough to go all the way around the box frame, and I had been wondering how I would join them together. This should be strong enough to hold.
I then went to the dollar store and ended up getting a several packages of angle braces that can be used to reinforce the donated cat shelter, instead of the triangle blocks of wood I was intending to use. These would be much better for the size of wood the shelter is made out of. I also got a few more things to use on the shelters, plus new sonic deer/wildlife screamers for the truck. I was down to one, and they’re not much good if there isn’t a pair of them.
I had just finished putting them on the truck and started heading to where we had arranged to meet, when my friend caught up with me. Perfect timing!
We had intended to go to a fish ‘n chips place for lunch, at 1pm, that had reopened recently. They’d had a fire some time ago, and it took quite a long time to get things up and running again, and I wanted to see the renovations. They were so incredibly busy, though, we barely got in the door, and saw that every table was full (granted, there isn’t room for a lot of tables anyhow) with lots of people waiting to place orders at the counter. So we left and walked up the block to a Thai place. I’d thought this place had closed and moved to the city, but I guess they’d opened a second location, instead. I haven’t been there in years, but my friend has been going there regularly since she’s been in town.
We have a very lovely, quiet, lunch, with excellent service!
It was really great to be able to sit and talk and get all caught up with each other.
After lunch, we just walked around and went to different places, checking out the marina and the local art club’s art gallery, and stopping at other restaurants for her to collect take out menus for her mother, who still lives out here. One place didn’t have any take out menus and the guy I asked said it was all their website, but her mother isn’t online, so that was of no use for her!
Town was really busy, as a lot of people use this long weekend to close up their cottages for the winter, and spend one last weekend on the beach before their kids go back to school. It wasn’t too bad, really, but neither of us enjoy crowds! All in all, though, we spent a couple of hours just hanging out together, and it was grand!
After we finally said our goodbyes – we may or may not have a chance to get together before she has to leave – I made a quick stop at the grocery store before going home. My husband has a birthday this month, so we’ll be doing things for him over the next week or so. We never celebrate birthdays on the actual day. 😄
I picked up some snacks he likes for now, and the girls tucked away the ice cream I got for later. My younger daughter plans to bake him a cake. His take out meal of choice was Chinese food, and I confirmed their hours while I was in town and got a fresh take out menu, just in case anything had changed.
They don’t have a website. 😄
We will be able to do the take out on Tuesday – after the long weekend is over!
It looks like I’m going to be doing a lot of running around over the next couple of weeks. We’ve got not only my husband’s birthday stuff going on, but the girls and I are taking my mother out to a nature reserve as part of her 93rd birthday celebrations – sort of. My mother said she didn’t want any fuss for her birthday this year, but she did want an outing to the nature reserve with my daughters, so we’re going to do both. Then there’s at least one appointment for my mother that I will be driving her to, and hopefully another in her home with the home care guy. My husband has to get to a lab for some bloodwork. I will hopefully see my friend one more time before she leaves. I also need to get back to the town my mother lives in to pick up kibble and lysine at the feed store, and will likely be back another day to pick up the clear plastic roofing material I’d ordered from the hardware store.
All of that in just the first two weeks of September, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something!
Meanwhile, I still don’t have the date for the spay/neuter the rescue has set up for us! I’ll have to contact her again. They’ve been insanely busy, too.
A couple of weeks from now, we should have someone coming in to excavate and repair the expeller on our septic system.
This is going to be a really crazy month!
After that, things should settle down, though.
I hope!
Pretty much all of this is good stuff, though, so no complaints!
The Re-Farmer 