With today’s heat, the cats have been splayed out in the shade absolutely everywhere!
The sun room thermometer was reading 30C/86F, which was actually the same as outside. The kittens were also puddled all over the place! I got the ceiling fan going, though, so that will help.
We spotted some excellent progress with the kittens!
They have discovered, and are using, the litter box! Something most of the adult cats haven’t figured out. So far, I’ve seen three of the four bigger kittens using it, including the adorable one above.
I had started calling this one Baby Button, because it reminds me of button so much. Today, my daughter came up with a much more entertaining name.
Eyelet.
So we now have Oofus the Brave and Eyelet named.
I checked on the cat house kittens. With today’s heat, I unplugged the power to the cat house, so the heat bulb will now be off, and so is the heated water bowl. Unless we drop below freezing overnight, we probably won’t need to plug it back in again.
I so wish we could reach into there! Once we have the chance, I want to cut a section out of the back wall and turn it into a door. That way, we can reach in and give them their own food and water, without having to lift the roof. The only other way to do it is through the entrance, which is at the opposite side of the cat house, and there is a sort of “porch” over what had been the original entrance. We can’t reach in very far, and other cats would just eat it first. These kittens look like they aren’t even leaving the cat bed yet, though they’re getting close.
My brother and his wife had come out again, today. I wasn’t expecting them at all and didn’t realize they were here until I went outside, just in time to see them leave!
With the message my brother got from our vandal yesterday, he wanted to talk to my mother about how our vandal found out they’d sold their property. He was too tired to visit her after hours working on that tree that fell on the outhouse, so he stopped by today.
Surprisingly, it actually turned out to be a good visit. He brought lunch, which turned out to be a good thing. My mother had gone to church, which tired her out enough that she went to sleep after, and she hadn’t eaten since whatever crackers she had when she got her med assist in the morning. After lunch, he set up my mother’s AC, in spite of her admonishing him that it’s too early, and then was all surprised that he got it done so quickly. He asked about the remote control so he could set it up, and she didn’t know where it was. He did some digging and finally found it, and was able to reprogram the default temperature on it. My mother does prefer things a lot warmer, as she gets older!
He did play the message our vandal had left him. My mother started going on about how he was the reason she moved away from the farm, because she was tired of his abusive behaviour (leaving my dad to be abused by him instead, but that’s another issue). Then she said that he keeps coming over and bringing her soup, and she tells him not to because his behaviour makes it taste bad.
She also said that the things he said in the message are much like what he says to her, and that he doesn’t let her get a word in when he’s there.
Yet… she doesn’t tell him to stop coming by.
When my brother asked about how our vandal knew they’d sold their property, she admitted that she might have mentioned it to him, a couple of weeks ago.
…
*sigh*
Then we found out that when he comes to visit my mother, when he walks down the hall, he tells everybody he meets all the accusations against me, my daughters and my brother about the farm and what he thinks we’re doing and saying. It turns out he even wrote out some long letter describing what he thinks we’re doing and left it in the common room. My mother didn’t see it until some time later and she tore it up. *sigh* She keeps all sorts of junk, but something important like this, and she tears it up!
Finding this out did explain something for my brother. While we was at his car and getting things to go inside, he started chatting with a guy that lives in my mother’s building. Not someone he’s met before. As they were talking and the guy realized he was my mother’s son, he said, “oh, so you’re the one who took the farm…”
My brother was so stunned and confused, he couldn’t say anything in response.
Now he knows why this guy said that.
The crazy thing is, the people in my mother’s building see me and recognize me. We’ve exchanged greetings and light conversation. I’m sure some of them have seen my brother, too. They know us.
So why would they believe the rantings and ravings of our vandal? Why would they even put up with him blathering at them in the common areas?
It’s getting to the point where I think I’m going to have to consult with a lawyer again. I’ve still got my Legal Shield membership, so any consultations are covered. It’s one thing for our vandal to be saying his crazy stuff about us to my mother or on phone messages. While I’ve suspected as much for some time, this is the first time it’s actually been confirmed that he is slandering us to others – even complete strangers. I don’t know that there’s much in Canadian law that we can do about it, but I can at least find out!
*sigh*
For someone who claims to be dying of cancer, he apparently hasn’t slown down even a little bit when it comes to his hate towards us. All because he thinks he’s somehow entitled to the property! I do understand that it isn’t even about him wanting it for himself so much and not wanting my brother to have it, or for us to be living here. In the 10 Commandments, it says “thou shalt not covet…” This is an example of covetousness. It’s one thing to see what others have an think “I wish I had that” and resent them for it. That’s your basic envy. It’s quite another to see what others have and think, “I should have that, not them,” and try to prevent others from having what they want, or try to have it taken from them. Marxism/socialism in a nutshell, really. The covetous person would rather see a thing destroyed, then see someone else have it. Or destroy the person who has what they want, and be willing to misuse the law and those in authority to do it. That is what our vandal is like.
Which makes it so frustrating when my mother just enables him and even allows him to turn her against my brother and me. He manipulated her so easily!
Another reason to try and get my mother into long term care or assisted living as soon as possible. There will be that extra layer of protection, and hopefully, our vandal won’t know where my mother will be at all.
*sigh*
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 
Sorry to hear your troublemaker is around and still causing trouble.
Just to offer some solidarity in the “challenging elderly parent department,” my own mother basically gave away her property in what can only be described as a Marxist moment of her own, conned by someone else who knew the lingo well. The unfortunate part was that she did it all in secret, without consulting any of her grown children who could easily have bought her out ourselves or at least protected her interests. The second unfortunate part was that she promptly became homeless, which is how she came to live with us.
It can be just maddening sometimes. Hang in there.
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Oh, dear! That must have been a real shock when you found out about it! The fact that she kept is a secret suggests at least part of her understood she was making a mistake, but didn’t want to get called out on it.
In our cases, none of us could take her in. We don’t have accessible enough housing, my brother and his wife are on a waiting list for supportive housing for themselves (expecting to get in, in 5 years or so), and my sister and I are both on farms, which my mother would hate. She wants to be around people.
“Hang in there” is about all we can do. I find myself wondering just how much his wife knows about what he’s doing. I know he keeps secrets from her – sounds familiar, I’ll bet!
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Yikes, what a nightmare that guy is, I can’t believe he doesn’t get over this obsession already! How on earth does he think his hate and abuse are going to improve his case at all? You’d think you could get some kind of restraining order to keep him away from your mom.
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To get a protection order for her, she would have to go to court and go through all the process herself. My brother has PoA, but she would have to be declared mentally incapable by a doctor for him to do it on her behalf. It doesn’t help that she causes her own problems by reaching out to him herself. I think she feels some sort of guilt towards him. They really are two peas in a pod, in many ways! They both are convinced their behaviour is completely justified, and neither of them understand that their own actions are creating the consequences they are dealing with. I’m willing to put up with it, to a certain extent, from my mother, but not from him!
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