First, some cuteness that is actually from last night. I went out to do my evening rounds before it got dark when I spotted this before I opened the door.
Adam and Slick were both nursing babies on the sidewalk. Two mamas, seven kittens. Slick has a litter of five, but they’re not all there. I think only one, possibly two, are there. I don’t know how many kittens Adam has, but I’m thinking around four. Being a créche mama, I have no idea which are actually hers. She is content to nurse any kitten. I’m pretty sure at least one of those kittens belongs to a much more feral mama that I’ve seen nursing a kitten in the sun room, once or twice.
I wonder if my evening walk has anything to do with how things turned out?
It’s just hit 9:30am as I start this, and it’s already been a very rough day.
I was awakened this morning by pain. Something’s gone wrong with my left hip. Maybe a slept in it wrong or something, I don’t know. I tried using Voltaren on it and took an extra anti-inflammatory and tried to get back to bed. There was no position I could lie in that alleviated the pain. When I finally tried to sit up, after about an hour or more, I could barely move. I couldn’t lie down. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stand. Moving hurt in one way. Not moving hurt in another.
I finally managed to get up and get moving, hoping that if I walked around, it would help, as it often does when my joints stiffen.
I can’t say that it worked.
Getting dressed was a challenge. Just try and put on pants or socks while sitting down, but not being able to bend over far.
We have a cane with feet on it, so it can stand on its own, and I had to use that while feeding the indoor cats for the morning.
That done, I went into the old kitchen to start on the outside cat food. In the mornings, I still mix up a can of wet cat food with ground pumpkin seed and water to make a “cat soup”, then mix it into the dry kibble and leave it to soften. I couldn’t use a cane while feeding the cats their softened kibble, so I was hobbling around on my own.
I did spot an adorable surprise.
Yes!!! In the first photo, that’s the smokey garage kitten we’ve been trying to lure closer to the house, at the feeding station on the well cap! This is between the house and the kibble house. She even was at the doorway to the sunroom when I first came out of the old kitchen!
It was around this time that the girls realized I was having issues, and they came out to give me a hand. My older daughter got my husband’s walker out for me, and I used that to continue my morning rounds. It’s heavy duty enough that it can handle the rough terrain in the main garden area.
I took my time doing my usual checks, stopping to sit on the walker along the way. It almost wasn’t worth taking the break. The act of sitting down and then standing up was the most painful.
When I came around to the house, I found my younger filling the water bowls, and she came to join me. As I was wheeling around the portable greenhouse to return through the sun room, we spotted the kittens inside. There was a fluffy grey tabby snuggled up against the protective collar around the bigger luffa – that explains why I keep having to shift the collar back in position! There was a tiny white and grey on the ground next to the other luffa’s pot, and Colby was pretty posing on top of the heat sink’s cover.
One of these days, I hope to get an accurate head count on the smaller kittens. They run and hide way too much!
As for me, it’s been about half an hour and I think my hip is feeling a bit better. My daughter made a breakfast for me that would protect my stomach from taking another anti-inflammatory (I’m still taking far less than “allowed” with them), and she was able to get some Voltaren over places I have difficulty reaching on my hip and lower back.
I don’t think I’m going to be able to accomplish much outside, today!
*sigh*
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 