With all the extra stuff that needed to be done yesterday, I did finally get to water the garden yesterday evening. The poor Turkish Orange eggplant were drooping so badly!
This morning, I made sure to give it another watering, before things got too hot – we’re supposed to break past 30C/86F, and the humidex will make it feel even hotter! Before I did, though, I checked on things and got a harvest done.
I’ve been hemming and hawing for a while now about the corn. Being a short season corn, with only 65 days to maturity, they should have been ready to harvest a while ago but – like everything else – they were way behind. In the process of taking a closer look, I found something else.
Our very first female Arikara squash flower buds. There had been only male flowers until now, but now that we’ve got some females about to bloom, there isn’t a male flower to be seen!
*sigh*
Today is the last day of August. We’ve got one more hot day, and then things are going to cool right down, with overnight temperatures low enough that we’ll need to cover some things.
While watering, I also spotted new female flowers on the Mashed Potato and Baked Potato squash. I’ll have to check them again this evening and see if they opened up and can be hand pollinated.
Why I bother, I have no idea. They won’t have enough time to mature, and they are in beds we won’t be able to cover.
Ah, well. You never know. It’s not like weather forecasts don’t constantly change!
I came prepared to do some harvesting, including stainless steel container for the Spoon tomatoes.
I decided to go ahead and harvest some of the corn. Since the stalks had one cob each, I pulled the entire stalk on the ones that looked ready enough. Handily, the beds are right next to the compost pile.
While I was picking beans and corn, I had company.
Sir Robin was absolutely fascinated by the reflections inside the stainless steel bowl and was busy trying to catch whatever he was seeing.
In the next picture, you can see I got a whole bunch of tiny corn cobs. This is not a large cob variety of corn, but they should have been bigger than this. A few little ones had so few developed kernels on them, they weren’t work keeping. So I just ate them. 😄
It was SO nice to finally pick a decent amount of beans! Finally!
The one Sub Arctic Plenty tomato looks like it should have been picked earlier. I think the heat got to it a bit. There was a decent amount of chocolate cherry tomatoes to pick this time.
The carrots are from the bed that was sown in the spring, rather than the ones sown in the fall. With the Atomic Red ones, it’s still somewhat of a thinning by harvesting situation. The Uzbek Golden carrots were planted using home made seed tape, so spacing was not an issue.
I’m always amazed by the Royal Burgundy bush beans. We have only three surviving plants, and one of those got chomped by a deer. Yet even that one had beans to harvest today! The plants are still really prolific, considering how small they are and how delayed their growth has been.
It wasn’t until later, when I was watering the summer squash, that I realized I missed a zucchini! Just one, though I found a couple that I was able to hand pollinate.
I’m quite happy with this harvest. Sure, we’ve had better in previous years. A harvest like this was something I had picked every couple of days throughout the summer but, for how things have gone this year, this is pretty amazing!
Also, it took forever to pick all those little Spoon tomatoes. Aside from the plants being stunted and short this year, it was pretty painful to pick them from the low raised bed. It did help that I could put a foot on the log wall when I needed to, to take some of the pressure off. In theory, I should be squatting to pick them, but I can’t squat with the condition of my knees, so I’m having to bend over, instead.
Thankfully, I got the harvesting and watering done before it got too hot. The watering got interrupted for a while as I spent some time with my brother, going over my mother’s car. It’s going to need a new battery, and that tire was almost flat again. My brother will take care of a few things on it, and we will take care of emptying it out and getting it detailed, and then it’s going to be sold.
As much as it would be good to have a second vehicle again, we just don’t have the budget to insure and fuel two vehicles anymore – and I would really use the space the car it taking up in the garage! That addition was made to be a work/storage space. My mother’s car is just small enough to fit in there, as long as the passenger side it close enough to the wall, so the driver’s side door can be opened wide enough to squeeze out. I would rather store things like the lawn mowers, snow blowers and wood chipper in there, so that the other side they are stored in can be a work shop again. When I was building the cat isolation shelter, I had to keep our vehicle parked outside for months, so that I had the space to build in.
All in good time. There is no hurry, but it would be nice if we could sell it before the winter.
Winter is on my mind a lot these days, even when we’ve got heat like today!
I had a pretty sleepless night, with concerns about our foundling kittens. I kept checking the critter cam and had to chase out the raccoon family and a couple of skunks. The foundlings were set up in the carrier that has a lid in the roof, in hopes the mother, or one of the creche mothers, would go in to them, but none did. One of my daughters and I fed them kitten soup with a syringe again. They were very hungry, but it was a very messy way to feed the kittens! A couple of them preferred to either lick the food off my hands, or “nurse” on my hand while my daughter carefully squirted the food next to their mouths. Before returning a kitten to the sun room, I made sure to wipe down their bellies and tried to stimulate their neither regions, like a mother grooming them, with a cloth to get them able to eliminate.
The first picture is the kittens, after we found them yesterday, and the second is where we found them. Not the clearly visible mower on the right. We had to move that one out completely to reach the second one, barely visible on the left. That’s the one they were under!
With a couple of kittens preferring to lick at the food, we also place a small shallow plate in the carrier with them, in case they wanted to eat again during the night. It was empty by morning, but that could have been some other cat jumping in with them and eating it. When we fed them this morning, we left the plate with some food in it with them, again.
Meanwhile, I reached out to a stray cat group chat I normally just lurk on. After talking to the Cat Lady, I am a bit leery of being active on there.
I explained about the kittens, and that we had come to the conclusion that the mother is no more. I was hoping someone knew of anyone able to foster the kittens, as there’s no way we could keep up with the care they needed. Even just feeding them every 2 hours was not something we could manage, and we aren’t even in a position to bring them into the house. I estimated them to be about 3 weeks old but, after looking at some photos, came to the conclusion that they are less than 3 weeks old. Not by much, but definitely not more than 3 weeks.
After some discussion, my morning plans changed. I needed to go into town to pick up some refills for one of my husband’s injections. It was suggested I try the local branch of the humane society, so I looked up their hours. They had some very strange hours, but they were open today, for two hours starting at 8am, then again for two hours starting at 5pm. I left in time to get there just a few minutes past 8am…
… only to find a hand written sign saying they were closed for the “rest of” the day. “Rest of?” They hadn’t even opened at all!
So much for that.
My next stop was at the vet clinic to see if they had any kitten formula. They did, so I picked up a tin. Talking to the staff as I bought it, I got the names of two other rescues to try.
That done, I had half an hour before the pharmacy opened, so I made a stop at the grocery store to pick up a breakfast I could eat in the truck while waiting for the pharmacy to open their doors. My husband’s refill was already prepared, so that didn’t take long at all, and I was soon on my way home.
Throughout all this, I was updating various people, including the Cat Lady, keeping them up to day. One of the people on the stray rescue group started messaging me privately. She was in the city and ran a small cat rescue, and she told me that, if I couldn’t get through to any of the other places recommended to me, to let her know, as she would take them. As we were talking, I explained why we were in no position to give the kittens the level of care they needed. In the end, she told me to please bring them to her! All she asked was for me to include the formula for them, which I was more than happy to do.
I had not been home for long when that decision was made. I mixed up a small amount of formula and was going to feed them, before we worked out when I’d be heading out. The kittens were sleeping peacefully, though, so we skipped it for the time being. The kittens, however, were a real mess! They looked like they had taken a bath in the now empty plate of kitten soup!
When the time came to leave, I quickly grabbed a puppy pad to put between the kittens and the now messy cat bed that I’d put on the bottom of the carrier for them, then headed out.
I had my phone set up on the dash board holder with Google Maps giving me directions to where I needed to go in the city. I was almost at my mother’s town when my cell phone started to ring. I recognized the name as the woman from the group that had given us huge amounts of donated cat food last year. I should have been able to answer the call hands free, but it just wouldn’t work. I finally had to pull over and tried to talk more directly into the phone, but it still wouldn’t work. I could sometimes hear here talking, but couldn’t even turn on the speaker phone to hear her properly. All I could tell is that she was starting to get angry because I was … using up her minutes? Her battery? Something like that.
It was the Google Maps app that was messing up the call. I finally figured out how to stop it from trying to give me directions, even after I’d closed the app, and could finally talk to her on the phone.
She had called to tell me, don’t give the kittens to this women.
???
I asked why, of course.
She is overwhelmed. She takes on too many cats. She keeps asking for food donations. She was asking for ear mite medication. She had some cats with really bad ear mites… Her heart is in the right place, but…
Funny. When I was going to meet up with her about the donated cat food, I’d gotten a warning about her, too, saying “her heart is in the right place, but…”. In her case, though, her actions have gotten the province involved and resulted in colony cats being killed rather than rescued. To have her now “warn” me about this other woman with a rescue that said she would take the kittens was… intersting.
She again basically ordered me to not give the cats to this woman. I finally told her, I’m pulled over on the highway, on the way to the city, right now. Do you have somewhere else I can take them, or what? Because we are not in any position to care for such small kittens.
Oh, you’re doing a good job already…
She was making assumptions based on what I had been telling the group about what we were doing with the kittens. I did not, of course, tell them about other stuff, like the various disabilities and other health issues we are dealing with in this household.
When it became clear that I was going to this woman’s place anyhow, she seemed to get pretty angry at me again. She then told me to scope her very small house myself when I got there, and to only believe a quarter of anything she told me.
I thanked her for the warning, and continued on my way.
Thankfully, getting to her place was pretty straightforward. After parking as close to the house as I could, I messaged to let her know I was there, and what I was driving.
Which is when I saw the messages in the group chat, where the woman that called me was telling the woman I was about to meet that she should not take the kittens because she already had too many cats and had an ear mite issue. Both claims that she responded by saying it was already dealt with.
Before I could even get out of the truck, she was coming over with a box to transfer the kittens into.
She told me that she had already been to a dollar store and back to get puppy pads and other such supplies in preparation for the kittens – and she mentioned the woman that had told me not to bring the kittens! I told her that I had just read the conversation about it, and that I’d gotten a phone call, too. It turned out that the ear mite situation had already been addressed, and she was just looking for more meds to have on hang, in case she got more cats with ear mites again. The other issues had already been dealt with.
From all I could see, everything was looking fine. I had zero issues over turning the kittens over to her.
That done, I was soon back on the road and headed home.
By the time I parked the truck, I had received messages and photos. The kittens have been bathed, toileted, fed and set on a warming pad.
Here are the before and after pictures; the second one was sent by the women who took them in.
I took the first picture through the door of the carrier, after they were loaded into the truck. What a mess! that cat bed turned out to be just covered in spilled kitten soup.
The second picture is after they got bathed and fed, and there is a warming pad under the blanket they are on. She got all that taken care of so quickly!
Meanwhile, I’d kept the Cat Lady up to date. Once home, I let her know about the kerfuffle on the group chat and being ordered not to give the kittens to this person. The Cat Lady knew both of them and was honest in saying she didn’t trust either of them! It seems the cat rescue community if filled with all sorts of such antagonism.
No wonder she’s getting out of rescue.
The kittens, however, are now rescued and will be well cared for!
I am now more convinced that their mother was Brussel, though I’ve gone from about 10% certainty to maybe 25% certainty.
Note I say “was”. Once again, Brussel did not show up at feeding time today. By now, I don’t expect to see her again.
I was talking to my brother this evening and mentioned to him that, if I didn’t go outside, looking for a data signal during the power outage yesterday, I would not have heard the kitten crying. With no mother around, they probably would not have lasted long at all, and we would never had known there were even kittens in that old shed.
Serendipity, to be sure!
Speaking of my brother…
Not long after I got home, I got a message from my SIL, letting me know they were on their way out! I was not expecting to see them this weekend, but I guess their grandson was already returned home, and now they’re here.
My brother had a bunch of things he wanted to check out, including their riding mower that I told him I feared I’d broken, because it wouldn’t move anymore, though everything seemed to be fine about it.
Before I even realized they were here, my brother had already taken it out and checked it.
Then he wanted to check on my mother’s car, but it’s been sitting so long, the battery was almost completely dead, so he had to charge it, first. We parked it after I tried using it, and it started making a very alarming banging noise when I tried to drive it. I turned around and came right home, and it hasn’t moved since.
It also had a flat. I’d found it with two flat tires during at the end of the first winter it was parked. I used the compressor to pump them up and the rear tire has been fine, since, but the front tire was flat by morning, every time I pumped it up. So I eventually stopped.
Then there was the compressor itself, which had started to trip the breaker every time we used it. When that happened, I would have to get a daughter to come over with a small step latter to climb onto the counter against the back wall of the garage, to reach the breaker panel and switch it back on.
Today was a scorcher and I’d intended to water the garden this morning, but with all the kitten stuff, that never got done. I went out to water it last this afternoon, while my brother was checking and fixing things, and my SIL was already mowing the rest of the outer yard with their zero turn mower (which I won’t touch!).
When to got to where I was taking the hose to water the East garden beds, I suddenly realized my mother’s car was in the yard, as my brother hosed off the accumulated gravel dust it was covered with. I went over to talk to him and learned:
… the riding mower that wouldn’t go? Worked fine for him. He got it up on a ramp and checked under it and he found zero damage.
… the compressor was working fine. He’d even used it last weekend, with no issues.
… the banging noise I heard from my mother’s car? He found zero damage. There was nothing to make the noise. After charging the battery enough to start the engine, and pumping up the tire, the car was running fine. He was driving it around the inner and outer yard, leaving the engine running to keep charging the battery. No banging noises. Not troubles at all. We just have to make sure it’s plugged in, for the trickle charger.
… I told him why I’d stopped pumping the front tire and said it would be flat in the morning. He said that yes, it will be!
So there’s all these things that went wrong for us, but as soon as my brother checked on them, it was all working fine.
I told him afterwards, I feel like an idiot now.
He told me, that’s just how it is with him. Even at his work, it’s the same thing, People have troubles with something, he comes over to try and fix it, and there’s nothing to fix. Things just start working again for him, all the time!
So it’s not just me… 😄
I still feel like an idiot. All this time, and we could have had access to my mother’s car.
Well.
Not really.
Now that we have the truck payments, we don’t have a budget to pay for the insurance on two vehicles anymore, not to mention the extra gas. The insurance for my mother’s car, however, is just suspended, not cancelled. If we need to, we could get it active again, even if for just a short time.
Not until that tire is replaced, though.
Which means that we will still be needing the courtesy vehicle while our truck’s box frame is being repaired and the new cover installed, at the end of September.
So we almost have a back up vehicle…
Meanwhile, not only did today turn out to be another 30C/86F day, but tomorrow is expected to be even hotter. Tomorrow, I will do what I intended to do today; water the garden early in the morning, then again in the evening. Today, I used the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden. The poor eggplants were seriously drooping in the heat! That garden got ambient temperature water, and I drained the barrel as much as I could, watering, watering and watering again! I got the other garden areas done with the hose. I even did the fruit trees and berry bushes. Everything was just so, so dry.
We’ve got just a few more hot days, and then it’s supposed to drop right down, and I’ll likely have to cover the more sensitive plants in the garden at night, in less than a week!
As for right now, I am so very tired. Hopefully, I will get a good night’s sleep tonight, now that I’m not concerned about the foundling kittens!
We really need to do something about having so many cats.
I headed to the city shortly after 10am, stopping at a gas station at my mother’s town along the way, only to pick up a drink and a road snack to tide me over. I tried a new brand of beef jerky.
I should have gotten the hint when there was no price. In fact, none of the beef jerky, nor most of their snack mixes have prices on display.
It turned out to be almost $21.
Along with the super large Monster energy drink I got, it came to just over $26 after taxes and enviro fees.
It was good jerky, at least, but I won’t be buying it again! I only had a few pieces and the rest is in its sealed bag in the console where we keep things like water bottles, road snacks, extra tissue boxes, extra wet wipes, etc.
When I got to the city, my first stop was at a mall for “breakfast” in the food court. I ended up getting a three item Chinese food meal and a drink – about $16 and change – but only ate half of it. The other half was my supper when I got home.
Before going to the Costco, I swung through the Dollarama that’s right by the food court (I don’t think I’ve ever checked out the rest of the mall) and the doors I parked near. I ended up getting a few things there; four shoe-box sized storage boxes with lids, a refill bottle of liquid soap, and a 4L jug of cleaning vinegar. They have the 10% acidity vinegar that I’d been looking for. The grocery store had only 7% acidity cleaning vinegar. (4% is cooking vinegar and 5% is pickling vinegar) The 10% is noticeably better at descaling our kettle, that’s for sure!
I also picked up a couple more clear vinyl table protectors for the garden. Or for winterizing cat shelters. Either one. I’ll probably pick up more before the snow flies.
I ended up buying another hard sized bag to carry the stuff, and my breakfast leftovers, to the truck. I have lots in the truck but hadn’t expected to get things like the vinegar or soap refills, so I hadn’t brought any with me. Usually, I just take my cart to the truck and pack things up there, but the Dollarama carts can’t leave the store.
That done, I finally drove the couple of blocks over to the Costco, with my first stop being for gas. Their gas was at $1.329 instead of the $1.449 everywhere else in the city, so they were pretty busy! I was just under half a tank, and my fill cost $61.54
Once that was done, I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot right away. Yay! With the long weekend coming up, the lot was pretty full.
This is a “family size” package of stew meat. We used to get these all the time. I remember getting this size for under $20. Now, that same size pack costs in the $60 range – and this was NOT the biggest pack in the display.
This is what I DID get.
I got six 9.1kg/20lb bags of kibble. They had the 11kg size, but the Kirkland brand is a better price/gram. I also got a 48 pack of wet cat food and more puppy pads. The cat supplies all together totaled $223.32 before taxes.
*sigh*
The other stuff on the flat cart they scanned included a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I, a case of Monster that my daughter will pay me back for, a 3 pk of oat milk for my daughters, toilet paper, paper towels and a double flat of 60 eggs.
For meats, I got a chub of ground beef and a pork blade roast. I got a pork loin, and plan to try something different with it. I was able to find and get curing salt a couple of weeks ago, so I’m going to try curing it. I also got a couple of 3 pks of Spam (that’s sure gone up in price, too!).
In dairy, I got 4 pounds of butter and Old Cheddar cheese.
For breads, I got two 2pks of rye bread and two packs of wraps. There is also a big case of spaghetti, a big jar of mayonnaise and popcorn. I remembered to get some fabric softener sheets for the drier; that three pack will last use a few years. Last of all, I got a Tuxedo cake. My husband’s birthday is in the beginning of September, so he’ll be getting his cake early!
And… that’s it.
That’s $619.41 before taxes. Of that, $259.94 was actual food for us (not counting beverages).
For the month.
Good grief.
True, we did do an earlier stock up trip at the international grocery store where the only non-food items were some hair accessories, on sale, for my daughter. Costco is also the place were we get the big stuff, like the paper products, along with the cat supplies, and typically bulk sized meats.
Kitten interruption: I went to chase raccoons out of the sun room. The foundling kittens were all crying in distress. No sign of a mama, and the creche mothers weren’t going into the cat cage, though Lady Hypotenose was nursing 5 or 6 older kittens in the middle of the sun room. We don’t have kitten formula, so my daughter and I ended up making “kitten soup” with a can of wet cat food and fed them, one at a time in the bathroom, using a syringe. They were confused by the whole thing, but were very hungry. In my last check on them, they had settled in together in the cat bed and seemed to be calming down with full little bellies.
On the down side, I think there are still four very stupid little raccoons jammed between the counter shelf and the window!
Back to our regular programming…
So this trip did go over our Costco budget, even though we got less than typical. Frustrating. Especially since we’re supposed to be stocking up extra in the pantry to tide us over for the winter, should we get snowed in or something again.
*sigh*
Well, it is what it is. We’ll work things out. We’ve been in tighter spots before.
Excuse me while I go chase some skunks out of the sun room…
After coming home from the Costco shop, it was late enough to feed the outside cats – which also lured them away from the truck that I parked by the house!
The cats didn’t have much appetite, though, and no wonder. As I write this, it’s just past 5pm. We’re at 28C/82F, with a humidex of 32F/90C The cats did come to eat, but it wasn’t long before they were all splayed out in any cool spot they could find.
The above image has two short videos in the slideshow. Poor Adam, trying to keep cool on the dirt, and she’s covered in littles!
That kitten on top of all the others, with the splotchy white and black fur on its back, it currently the only one that has eye troubles. Just one eye has been stuck shut. I’ve been trying to get at it for a while. This morning, I finally did – sort of! I was able to basically hold it in place with one hand, while it hissed and spit and tried to bite me, then started wiping the stuck eye with a sopping wet paper towel.
The kitten stopped fighting me and let me get its eye cleaned up and open!
While doing the evening feeding, I saw its eye was stuck shut again. It too a while, but after it had an Adam snack, it went into the shade under the kibble house. I was able to make it come out, where I could grab it and hold it down. Once again, it hissed and spit at me, right up until I started washing its eye. It immediately settled down and let me finish. The goop had dried pretty hard, so it took a while, and it was very patient about it!
I saw a few among the influx of littles that started to get sticky eyes, but most of them cleared up almost immediately. There’s still one that looks messy in both eyes, but that one is already doing better. This kitten has just one sticky eye, but otherwise looks fine.
And yet, we are still loosing kittens. I found another one in the new cat cave this morning. Of the three littles I had to bury so far, none of them had looked sick before hand. I was pretty surprised by which one I found this morning. What I did notice when gathering them up to bury them, however, is that they all seemed to have had diarrhea.
So is this still that endemic herpes virus, or is something else doing them in?
I don’t know, but I did notice that there’s one kitten with a messy butt – I actually expected to find that one this morning! It’s still puttering around and playing with its siblings and cousins. There are a few that look super tiny and super skinny. That doesn’t mean much. Grommet and Sir Robin both still look super small and skinny for their ages.
[pause for an almost 2 hour power outage]
Well, now… that was fun.
Okay, what I was going to do next was show Blot (as in… ink blot…), blocking my access to the old kitchen!
According to one of my weather apps, we actually hit 30C/86F earlier today – higher than was in the forecast, and I don’t know what the humidex was at the time. The old kitchen manages to stay a bit cooler. I wasn’t able to close the outer door as I went out to feed them. When I came back to put the kibble bowl away, I was blocked! Blocked by an adorable ink Blot.
Blot is one of the super tiny, super skinny kittens. I’ve managed to sneak a pet while s/he has been eating, but that’s it.
Okay…
So…
The power went out as I was working on this post. I had to go outside and wander around to find somewhere with data signal strong enough to log into the power company’s app, where I could report the outage and check for any others. The map even loaded this time! There was something like a dozen other outage reports in our area, so it was pretty widespread.
While I was outside, I suddenly hear a tiny, distressed sounding… squeak?
I headed into the outer yard, trying to fallow the sound, and eventually pushed my way through the jungle of tall weeds in front of the shed with the collapsed roof. I then pinpointed the noise to one spot.
More the roof had collapsed, with parts of it right on top of a couple of old, broken lawnmowers that had been pushed in, against one wall, before the roof fell in. After more poking around, I spotted some orange fur sticking out from under a board.
It took a while, but I was able to get the kitten out.
It was distressed at first, of course, but as soon as I had it in the palm of my hand and close against my chest, it settled right down.
In the process, I heard another squeak. There was at least one more kitten somewhere in there.
I went back to the house, kitten curled up in my hand still, and called for my daughter through the door to give me a hand with finding kittens. I then went and got one of the carriers from out of the sun room.
By the time I wrestled it out of the shelf it was in, my daughter was outside around the cat shelters, wondering what kitten I needed help with.
Then she saw the orange fluff I was holding!
Off we went to the shed together. We put the kitten into the carrier and started looking around for another. We had only a single squeak to let us know we were still in the right general area.
We tried moving out some of the pieces of broken roof, but some were just too large and still attached to each other. I ended up getting a saw out so we could cut away broken truss pieces.
While my daughter was cutting the first piece, she saw movement.
In the opening of one of the lawn mowers, where the grass clippings would fly through.
I was able to go over, reach in and grab it.
It hissed and spit a bit, but I handed it to my daughter to cuddle before putting it with its sibling, and it calmed right down.
Meanwhile, I took the saw to cut through the next piece of wood. As I was doing that, we saw another kitten emerge. My daughter caught it and we snuggled it a bit before adding it to the carrier. This one was totally chill!
We were able to move out more pieces of wood by then, which is when we were able to spot and catch a fourth kitten.
When my daughter pulled that one out, she commented on how cold and damp it was underneath!
We cleared away more bits and pieces until I could lift out one of the old lawn mowers. I didn’t dare try to roll it away, in case there was a kitten under it. Finally, my daughter was able to use the handle to lift the second mower so I could check under it.
No more kittens!
We checked some more to be extra sure, but that we could not hear or see any more kittens.
We then took them to the sun room, and put them in the bed in the cat cage.
The almost completely orange one is the one I first found, under the rotten board. Then my daughter found the orange and white one, and finally we got the little tortie and tabby. They all look strong and healthy, but can’t be more than a couple of weeks old.
The question is, who is the mother?
The only cat I’ve been seeing in that general area has been Brussel. I suppose it’s possible she had a second litter, considering how early in the year she had her first (only Sir Robin remains of her two kittens). She had her two right in the cat cage, so it’s an area she’s already familiar with.
In the next picture, you can see where we found them. I had to pull the one mower out completely and, once we were sure there were no other kittens, I pushed it back. It’s the other mower that can be barely seen in the photo that the kittens were under.
We ended up putting a food bowl with wet cat food right in the cat bed with the kittens. They’re too young for solid food, but I hope it will be a tempting reward for the mama when she finds them.
I can see the kittens in the critter cam, all curled up together and sleeping.
If nothing else, they’re warm and dry now!
I do hope we don’t end up having to hand feed them, though. That’ll be rough!
The power went out again, today. I was in the middle of doing a blog post, too! Ah, well.
It’s been more than an hour, as I write this. Not sure if I have enough signal to post this. I might have to go outside again.
I did that earlier to try and log into the power company’s app. There are outages reported all over our municipality.
Then I heard the noise.
Long story short, we found four kittens, just a few weeks old, under a junk lawnmower under parts of a collapsed roof. They are in the cat cage in the sun room, with some wet cat food. They are too young for it, but the mama’s all come to the sun room, eventually, so it will be a treat for her!
Hopefully, the mother will accept the soft and comfortable nest they are in, too.
The power went out again, today. I was in the middle of doing a blog post, too! Ah, well.
It’s been more than an hour, as I write this. Not sure if I have enough signal to post this. I might have to go outside again.
I did that earlier to try and log into the power company’s app. There are outages reported all over our municipality.
Then I heard the noise.
Long story short, we found four kittens, just a few weeks old, under a junk lawnmower under parts of a collapsed roof. They are in the cat cage in the sun room, with some wet cat food. They are too young for it, but the mama’s all come to the sun room, eventually, so it will be a treat for her!
Hopefully, the mother will accept the soft and comfortable nest they are in, too.
While doing my morning rounds, three kittens were playing on the hand rail in front of the sun room – but did not what me anywhere near them! They know that rose bush will protect them. 😄
The third image of the garage kittens was from this evening. I went to tie off the catio door for the night, so it won’t blow around. I didn’t even seen them in the cat bed at first! I wasn’t able to get closer, though. I was able to pet them both when I fed them this morning, while they were eating, but that smokey one will not let me touch her, any other time.
Yet.
The littles are all over the place in and around the sun room, and I was able to get a couple of decent shots. That white and black kitten in the last two images has such surprisingly blue eyes!
Sadly, though, we lost another kitten last night. Once again, I found it in the new cat cave in the sun room, like the last one. About the only thing I can say is, at least they passed away in the warmth of a cuddle puddle, and not cold and alone.
Once the morning routing was done, I had time for a quick breakfast before heading out early to my appointment. I wasn’t sure how long things would be, so I made sure to go to the post office before it closed from 11:30am to 2pm. They close for the day at 5pm.
Then, just to be on the safe side, I made sure the packages of seeds were put into an insulated bag, in case the cab of the truck got too hot. I’m glad I did, because yes, it certainly did!
I got to the shopping commons the clinic is at early enough to grab a proper meal for lunch. I’m glad I did because I ended up getting into my 1:30 appointment about 45 minutes late.
The first thing the doctor did was ask how the new prescription was working out. I told what a huge difference it made, and that I’ve hardly had to take any painkillers since I started taking it. She was really happy to hear how well it went. Especially when I told her I have only been taking it once a day, before bed. She commented that I’m already on a low dose (I can take it up to three times a day), so it was really amazing that it’s made such a difference. She commented on how this particular anti-inflammatory is really good, and she thinks it should be prescribed more often. I did mention the one time I took with with just a snack rather than a meal and how that really did a number on my stomach. She was just nodding her head and saying, yup… it does need to be taken with a full meal, because it can be so hard on the stomach, otherwise, and mused that that’s perhaps why it isn’t use more often. All I can say it, it has helped me so much, I’m willing to make the effort to take it properly so that doesn’t happen!
I then told her about my hip issues and asked for X-rays to find out what’s going on. She looked in my file and it’s been more than 5 years since my hips have been X-rayed, so it was time. We already know that I have OA and bone spurs, but something is going on with that left hip that’s making it worse. She wrote me up for a complete pelvic X-ray, so both hips would be checked out.
Then we got to why I was there in the first place. My arm.
I was able to read the report on her monitor with her. They found no anomalies in my shoulder or elbow. Which surprised me, because they do still hurt at times. Especially the shoulder. Which suggests to me that the issue is now soft tissue damage – though the anti-inflammatories are helping with the arm pain, too!
Then there was the hand/wrist. There was a potential anomaly, so they recommended to get it X-rayed again in 1-2 weeks. We were already past that, so she printed out another requisition to get my wrist done again, along with my hips.
As for the follow up, normally they would call me to book a follow up appointment, but I mentioned that my daughter already has an appointment coming up on the 9th, so she said to go ahead and book my follow up then. Which I took care of while picking up my printouts.
Next stop was the hospital, where the lab and X-ray is. Once I gave them the forms, I had time to message the family with an update, and was soon called in for the X-rays. The tech took X-rays of my hand in some very different positions from the last time it was done. At this point, all they can do is confirm whether or not something actually broke in there. After all this time since my fall, it’s not like they’re going to put my wrist in a cast or anything.
Once the hand was done, I got the hips done, and that was it. It was very fast.
That done, it was back to the shopping commons where my doctor’s clinic is, this time to make a quick stop at the grocery store. I hadn’t realized we were out of bread until last night. While I was there, I picked up some sandwich meats that were on sale, and a few other little things.
From there, it was a stop at the gas station and the home.
When I was about 10 minutes from home, I could see the highway ahead of me, disappearing in a cloud of white. It turned out to be an absolute wall of rain! It was coming down hard enough, with so much water on the road, I had to slow down and was about ready to pull over and wait it out. It did lift a bit, though, and I was able to continue. By the time I got home, it had blown over – something I was very happy about, since I needed to get out to open the gate. Particularly since, with the inside handle on the driver’s side door broken off, I need to open the window so I can open the door from the outside.
No complaints about the rain, though. We needed it.
Anyhow.
So all went well with the doctor, though I am surprised nothing showed up in the X-rays for my shoulder and elbow. The shoulder injury it still sometimes an issue, and I was expecting some sort of damage to my rotator cuff. My left elbow has been a problem for a long time, since well before my fall, but that is due to nerve damage, so I guess that wouldn’t show up in an X-ray.
In a couple of weeks or so, I will be back to find out what they find in my hips.
That should be… interesting! I hope I get to actually see the X-rays this time, and not just a report. I’m very curious as to what shows up!
Meanwhile, it is now past time for me to have the supper my daughter made – a nice, substantial meal to take my anti-inflammatories with!
Yes! They finally came in! My last two orders from MI Gardener. USPS tracking simply told me they had arrived at a facility in Canada. That’s it. Not even that it arrived as destination. Just… Canada. Somewhere. 😂
I picked the packages up before I headed to my doctor’s appointment, so it was some time before I was home and able to open them up. I went ahead and did a seed haul video as I got them out.
I just realized I goofed in the video. The first order of seeds I did was on July 8, and there were no sales when I placed that order. Then I placed an order on August 1st, for a 25% off sale. Then a 40% off sale started the next day, so I placed a third order. If you visit the links, you can read more about each item. Links will open in new tabs.
With that caveat, here is my seed haul video.
While the video was uploading, I headed outside for my evening rounds and checked out a few things.
The first image is the Jebousek lettuce in the bed that self seeded in the garden bed by the chain link fence that was basically destroyed by cats getting under the mesh cover. There will be plenty of seed to collect, soon.
The next two images are of ripening Turkish Orange eggplant. Whether we enjoy these or not, these are not something I will be growing again until we have a polytunnel or a greenhouse or something. They are way too sensitive to cooler temperatures!
In the last image, we have our FIRST luffa flower buds. These clusters are the male flowers. The female flowers have a single flower on the end of a teeny developing luffa gourd. Who knows. Inside the portable greenhouse, it might still have time to fully develop. Unlikely, but one can hope, right? 😁
While out there, I even managed to pick a small handful of purple bush beans.
We’ve been having a fair bit of rain in the last while, so I haven’t been watering the garden. When checking it last night, things looked a bit dry, so I figured I’d do some watering. With our Dark Grey Zone soil, overwatering isn’t really possible.
I couldn’t belief how dry things were! It really showed when I was filling the upside down plastic jugs by the summer squash, and the collars around the winter squash. It took a shockingly long time to fill them with water, it was draining into the thirsty soil so quickly. Almost faster than the hose could fill them! I refilled them two or three times before it finally started to drain more slowly.
It got dark before I could water the old kitchen garden, so I did that, this morning. It, too, was really dry.
They should be good for a while, though. We weren’t supposed to get any rain today, but as I was driving back from my appointment in the late afternoon, I drove into a wall of rain. It was coming down so hard that I was seriously considering pulling over to wait it out. It let up a bit, though, but as I drove the last couple of miles to home, I was fully expecting to get completely soaked while opening the gate.
But then, it was gone. When I reached the gate, had all but stopped. By the time I closed the gate up again and was heading for the house, the clouds parted and the sun came out!
The deluge was welcome, though. We still have a lot of wildfires right now. Most are in the “monitored” category, so nothing is being done about them for the moment. Some are listed as either “being held” or “under control”, with a few that are still listed as “out of control”. We are no longer under any alerts for air quality from the smoke, so that’s a good sign.
Tomorrow, I’m off again to the city for our Costco shopping trip. A good time to be doing it, as we’re going to be getting some really hot days coming up. Depending on which app I look at, we’ve got a couple of days that might even exceed 30C/86F! I’ll see if the garden will need watering in the morning; if it doesn’t, I’m pretty sure it’ll need it by evening! We might be watering twice a day again, if the forecast is accurate. By next week, though, it’s supposed to drop right down, and we’re supposed to get overnight lows of 5-6C/41-43F We’ll be covering some of the garden beds again, in that range. They’re no longer predicting overnight lows at or below freezing in the second week of September anymore, which is when we would typically expect first frost.
At this point, my focus is getting more on being ready for next year. There isn’t much more we can do about this year’s garden if the temperatures drop. Things are just too far behind.
As soon as I get up from my office chair, or go near it, Clarence runs ahead of me, jumps onto the chair and does this. As if to say, you can’t be mad at me! I’m adorable!
Then he goes all rubbery when I try to take him off.
Sorry, Clarence. You ain’t THAT cute! 😂
I fooled him this time, though. I didn’t need the chair. He was so disappointed. 🤣
Today, my daughter and I went into the city for our first stock up shopping trip. This is the one where we hit multiple stores along one strip.
Just as we were pulling out of our driveway, though, my cell phone started ringing. My first thought was, oh, no. It’s home care calling to say they can’t do my mother’s med assist.
My daughter was thinking the same thing.
I was able to pull over immediately – one advantage of living off of gravel roads! It turned out to be the autobody place. They wanted to book the truck in for the insurance claim repairs. That is now scheduled for the 26th to the 30th of September, and they have a courtesy car for me, so we can still do our stock up shopping. Yay!
Our next stop was at the gas station in town, where we picked up $40 in gas. Prices jumped 10¢/L overnight, a few days ago. Since the town nearest us is a resort town, they have the same prices as the city, at $1.449/L My CAA card gave me a whole 83¢ discount. Better than nothing, I suppose.
From there, we headed to the city and our first stop was at Walmart. The main thing we needed there was cat food.
This is what $200.23 looks like.
We did get a few other things to, of course.
For the dry kibble, we got a different brand because we could get three bags, about 21kg (a little over 40 pounds) for about the same price as two bags of our usual brand, which would have been 18kg total (a little over 36 pounds). Those were for the outside cats. We also got two 32 packs of wet cat food, one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats.
There was a really good price on some boxed cereal my daughters like, so we grabbed two of those, along with some feminine hygiene products I’ll be paid back for later. We got a 4 pack of Monster drinks for now; we’ll be getting a case at Costco (which I will be paid back for as well).
I grabbed some water flavours for my husband, and a pound of butter, as we were out this morning. We’ll stock up on butter at Costco, in a couple of days.
That’s it. That’s $200.
*sigh*
Our next stop was the Canadian Tire, with a side trip to Michaels. My older daughter needed a certain size of envelop we haven’t been able to find anywhere and really hoped we’d find them at the Michael’s! These are to fit some prints, among other things, my daughter sends to some of her higher tier Patreon supporters. They come in two sizes and we haven’t been able to find anything that fits both!
Thankfully, they did have a size that worked. We got her two packs of 50. That should last a while! They cost about $36, but I will be reimbursed for those, too.
Next, we drove across the lot to the Canadian Tire and picked up two bags of stove pellets for the litters. They weren’t in the usual place, so I asked staff. They directed me to the BBQ pellets. Which are fancy woods and really expensive. I found someone else and she tried to direct me to the same area. After looking it up on the devices all the staff carried, she finally saw what I was talking about, but had no idea where they were.
They turned out to be in the exit vestibule.
All we needed were two bags! That came out to $16.78.
Finally, we were off to the international grocery store. It shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so we went into there, first. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but they did have more of those metal fence posts that I am currently using to fence around our corn and squash bed. I got four more, for a grand total of $21.25
Looking at the receipt, though, I see they have them listed as “flower stand”. ??? I have no idea how they would be used as a stand for flowers. I just tried looking them up and, after tweaking the search terms a bit, finally found them – being sold as fence posts. Which is what they’ll be used for!
Then we finally went into the international grocery store. It was past lunch time by then, so the first order of business was food! I got a three item dim sum meal that was so loaded, I only ate half of it, and the rest will be my supper. My daughter got some fresh sushi (they were in the process of making more while we watched) which turned out to be available for free with points, so I used them. So my meal, plus our drinks, totaled just over $16.
This place is where we get a number of things we don’t find anywhere else – at least not anywhere we go regularly. Since we have to make special trips into the city, we won’t have the luxury of hunting down specialty shops, nor harder to get to locations. I was happy that we made it today, because it was the last day for some really good deals.
This is what $248.54 looks like.
Pretty much everything in there was on sale.
The main thing I really wanted to get was the frozen sushi grade Ahi tuna. They were only $1.99/100grams. I ended up getting to two biggest frozen chunks of tuna they had left. My daughters really loved it, the last time they had a sale like this and I was able to get one. They enjoyed it both raw and as steaks, lightly seared.
The other proteins we got was some regular ground beef, applewood smoked bacon slab and regular smoked bacon slab, which was on sale. I also got a salmon for the girls that wasn’t one sale, except that it was a deal connected with my loyalty card’s special offers, so that got price reduced when we scanned it through.
This store has an excellent cheese counter. They had lactose free brie that was one a “buy two and save” sale. I also got a pesto gouda, which is something new to try. Yes, it was on sale, too.
Let’s see. What else…
There is a bag of pearl barley – something only my husband and I like in this household. It was not on sale. I can’t believe these now cost over $4 each! We got the soy sauce my husband likes and, after much searching, my daughter found some liquid smoke I remembered to pick up, for something I want to try later on.
There is a clamshell of nectarines that was on sale, and the sale for the instant milk tea was so good, I got two. The Kraft Mac and Cheese was on sale, as were the granola bars and Greek yogurt. My daughter also spotted some hair accessories on sale, so we picked those up as well.
Finally, we got things for immediate eating when we got home. A huge Lumber Jack sandwich for my husband (that’ll be at least two meals!), plus my daughter chose three different sushi for herself and her sister that was part of a multi-discount, so they came out to only $5 each. Last of all were a couple of drinks for the road.
So my total for all that was $248.54 after taxes. I got bonus points that largely made up for what I used to get my daughter’s lunch sushi for free, plus I got $54.94 taken off with loyalty card sales. It doesn’t include the savings from items on sale that are sold by weight. Including those, it was probably closer to $65-$70 off.
In the end, counting the items not pictured, gas and lunch, our total expenditure for the day came out to just over $578, some of which I will be paid back for.
There were a lot of things we would have liked to get. They were even on sale. The problem was, what is considered a sale price now for these things is what used to be a high regular price, just a year or two ago! We stayed in budget, but even if we wanted to go over budget, we would not have been willing to pay those prices, sale or no sale.
It should be interesting to see what the prices are like at Costco, when we go in a couple of days!
Tomorrow, however, I’m heading out again, this time to my doctor’s appointment. If things go as I hope, I’ll be getting X-rays on my left hip to find out what the heck is going on there of late. It has actually gotten better, in that I can put weight on my left leg to go up a step or two, but it’s still really unstable. While I am ambidextrous with most things, I’m left dominant. Which means I’m more likely to step forward with my left leg rather than my right. I made the mistake of stepping up a curb with my left leg today. I really should not have done that! It messed me up enough that, even when I was stepping up with my right leg, I needed to grip my daughter’s hand to stabilize me as I did it. I know I have bone spurs in both my hips, along with the OA. It could just be that the OA in my left hip has gotten worse.
No way to know without getting X-rays done.
I’m quite curious about what showed up in the X-rays of my left arm. They wouldn’t have called me in if everything was fine, but it can’t be too bad, or they would have had me either come in earlier, or told me to go to a hospital.
I’ll find out tomorrow!
Then it’s back to the city the day after, for the Costco shopping.
We need to focus on stocking up. I’m seeing more long range forecasts for this winter, and the general consensus seems to be a mild fall (ha!) and winter (double ha!), with lots of snow and blizzards. Which means a higher potential of getting getting snowed in.
At least this year, my brother’s equipment is all out here. Including snow blowers and a snow clearing tractor attachment. None of which we can use ourselves, though. Some need repairs, and some have “tricks” to using them, that only my brother knows! I expect they’ll be out here pretty much every weekend, once their grandson is back home. I know my brother has a lot of stuff he wants to get working on, including repairing a tractor that got damaged when they were moving their stuff out here. Plus, things need to be organized, just to be able to get at some of the equipment. When their property sold, they only had so much time to bring everything they were keeping out here, and were just shoving things wherever they could find the space! It’s not even something we can help him with, either. With their “new” mobile home/caravan they recently picked up, they will at least have a winter worthy “home” to use in the winter, though being an older model, even that has some work my brother wants to do on it to make sure it’s winterized and no rodents or wasps or anything like that can get in.
So while we can expect to have a much better winter when it comes to things like snow clearing, that can only happen while my brother is here. Which means there is still the potential to get snowed in. At least the truck is better able to get through the snow than our previous vehicle, but even that only goes so far.
Some of the littles have discovered the inside of the cat house. Much better than hiding under it!
I’m happy to say, I’ve been able to pet and even pick up more of the littles today. Ar least, among the ones near the house. The ones that use the shrine feeding station are still totally feral. Alas.
One of my goals for today was to get some mowing done. I wasn’t up to doing the overgrown area with the push mower, so I broke out the riding mower my brother went use. I was able to get lots done with it.
I was working on a section of the outer yard in front of the garage when I ran out of gas again. I was close to done for the day, but wanted to finish that one last bit. I refilled the tank and got the mower started again…
… it wouldn’t move.
Now, with our old mower, we had that happen when the drive chain would fall off. This mower is a very different, more modern, design. Also, it was moving just fine until it ran out of gas.
After trying several times, I finally just pushed it back into the garage. I used my phone’s camera to try and get some pictures of the underside and sent them to my brother, telling him what happened.
Then I finished with the push mower.
My brother won’t be coming out this weekend, so it’s going to be a while before he can check it out.
This place murders lawnmowers. It’s bizarre!
Nothing we can do about it for now. Tomorrow, I’m off to the city for our first stock up shopping trip, so I really wanted to get the mowing done. The rest of the outer yard will just have to wait!
The Re-Farmer 