This afternoon, once the shopping was unloaded, I headed outside to feed the yard cats a bit early. I wanted them to all have a chance to eat before the skunks and raccoons came out to empty all the food trays!
I counted 14 cats today, including Judgement, back for the winter, and most of them were being very friendly and wanting pets.
I took advantage of that.
I still had a whole bunch of reflective collars set aside. I’d been using them to show which cats were spayed and neutered at a glance, but as we are getting dark so quickly, I decided to put them on as many cats as I could. My hope being they will be visible while crossing the roads and not get hit by cars, and so that anyone who sees them knows they are not strays, but cats that are being cared for.
I’m not sure it’s much of an advantage for some of them!
That’s Colby in the first picture. With a black collar. Somewhere under that long fur!
The second picture is Gouda, and you can just barely see his pink collar. Surprisingly, I was able to get a collar on Fancy Pants, who usually allows us to pet him only while he’s eating. He actually came up to me for pets, while I was putting collars on other cats.
By the request of my daughters, I did not use any of the red collars. They find those very alarming to see glimpses of, as it always makes them think they are seeing injuries!!
I was able to get a pink collar on Pinky, when I spotted her on one of the shelves of the portable greenhouse frame, between the white lilacs and the shrine.
Which is when I spotted this.
Yes, those a fresh, green leaf buds emerging on the white lilacs! I’m seeing them only on the new suckers, not the older parts of the lilac bushes, but still… this warm weather is confusing some of the things that get the most sunlight!
Today, we reached a high of 12C/54F, which was gloriously warm and pleasant in the sun. Looking at the long range forecast, it seems this will be the last day we get with a high above 10C/50F for this year. Even so, we’re looking at another two weeks where the highs will almost always be above freezing, as well as about half of the overnight lows.
Which means we will continue to keep the hoses out and continue to deep water the haskaps regularly, for quite a while yet.
In other things, I’m happy to say that I have, for the first time since my surgery, slept in my own bed instead of on the couch in the cat free zone.
I decided to try it after I successfully napped there in the afternoon. I’d just laid down on the couch when the phone rang. Getting out of the couch from a prone position is not good. The call was from my mother. As I was talking to her, I could barely keep my eyes open. Once the call was done, I sent a couple messages to update my siblings about what my mother was asking for. Then I decided to try lying down on my own bed, instead of the couch.
Of course, I was immediately catted. Shadow was so excited, he curled up by my face and kept grabbing my nose closer so he could lick it. Butterscotch, as usual, ended up on my waist for a while. I woke a couple of hours later to find Tissue curled up hard against the backs of my knees and thighs – her favourite place!
No cats jumped on my abdomen.
So I gave it a try.
On the one hand, it went well. On the other, it did not!
Getting in and out of bed and being able to roll over was much, much easier on my incision sites, and while I had cats cuddling me, none tried to use me as a trampoline.
I did, however, get frequently awakened by some of them causing a ruckus. At one point, I was awakened by someone on my computer tower, knocking things off. Including my phone’s handset and charger. I found the charger and put it back, but never found the handset. This morning, I got my daughter to listen while I tried phoning our own number. Even then, she couldn’t quite identify where it was, other than vaguely where it always is.
In the end, I had to move most of what I have under my computer table to access the very corner – kept blocked to keep the cats out of it – and that’s where I found the phone. How it ended up there, I can’t imagine!
But we found it, and that’s the main thing.
If things go well, it might not be an issue for very much longer. I’ve been chatting with my SIL as she worked on clearing my FILs apartment. There are two desks that need to be moved out, and we will be taking them. Both my husband and I are using tables for our desktop computers, and mine has a litter box under it. When I go into the city for my follow up appointment, we’ll be just a few blocks away from my FILs apartment. My SIL works from home, and doesn’t have any meetings booked that afternoon, so once we let her know we are done, she can come over and we can load the desks into the truck.
No one has claimed my FILs couch, it turns out. It will have to be done another day, but we can take that, too. It will allow us to replace the couch that was already here when we moved in. My mother bought a couch and loveseat set; she took the loveseat when she moved out, and that’s currently in the storage house. She bought them because they are very pretty, and she liked how they looked, not because of how comfortable they were. She never used the loveseat in her own apartment, other than the stack things on every now and then.
So we will look into how we can get rid of the current set, and will use my FIL’s couch. Which has reclining seats on each end, and we already know is quite comfortable and easy to get in and out of. It’s in very good shape, too. There’s also a recliner that is quite a bit older and looks shabby, but we might take that, too, because it’s also very comfortable, but that has not been decided yet.
We might end up with a lot of other pieces, too, if only because my husband’s siblings can’t keep them, and there really isn’t a lot of time to try selling things. Once they are here, if we can’t use them, either, we can slowly get rid of things over the winter. It will take some stress off my SIL, and is one of the few things we are able to do to help her with a very difficult job.
Also, unlike my mother, there is no insistence that we must keep everything, forever and ever, like my mother has insisted with their stuff. We could easily furnish two houses with all the things of theirs we have in storage right now! Some of them can be sold as vintage or antique items. My mother has actually told us we should have a garage sale, but then says we need to keep everything and is constantly worried about whether the storage warehouse is locked or not, because she thinks people will come steal her precious, precious stuff. Especially her boxes and boxes of papers and printed out “historical” pictures that only she cares about. My FIL has never been attached to material things the same way, though we all have items that hold sentimental value for us, which is a completely different thing. For us, if we can keep something that was his while also being able to replace something that needs to go, that is a win win for everyone.
Thankfully, we still have about a month to work things out, so it’s not a huge rush like it was with getting my mother’s apartment emptied out – in January! I’m still amazed it took so many trips with our truck, plus a couple more trips with my brother’s truck that has a tall cap and can hold so much more.
Anyhow…
We do what we can!
For now, I’ve done what I can to make our yard cats more visible and hopefully increase their chances of survival!
Assuming they don’t all promptly lose their collars. 😄
The Re-Farmer
