I was in a hurry when doing the shopping post and completely forgot to post this picture.
While unloading into the house, I put my husband’s birthday cake on the counter.
When I came back later to put it in a better spot, I found I was too late.
A cat had sat on the lid!
The cat wasn’t after the cake, though. Right next to it was an insulated bag with the two hot rotisserie chickens in it. The cake was just in the way!
My husband found this hilarious.
The Re-Farmer
Well, the Costco shop was $800.10. I forgot to get a picture of the Walmart shop, which was done first. That one was $161.28
So I’ll do the Costco list first.
Yeah. That’s $800.10 right there.
*sigh*
There were a few things we don’t normally get, though. Like my husband’s birthday cake! He has a birthday coming up soon, and he asked for cake and lots of ice cream bars. 😄
So, this is the list, in the order that’s on the receipt.
Butter: 5 pounds at $5.49 each – way cheaper than anywhere else – for a total of $27.45
Flour, 10kg size: $9.99
KS Drawstring garbage bags: $21.99
Canned cat food: $38.99
Kirkland brand dry cat food (best price per kg); four 9kg bags: $26.99 each
Kirkland brand toilet paper: $22.99
Coke Zero: $14.69, plus 32¢ enviro fee
Birthday cake: $24.99
Lean ground beef: $30.85
Stewing beef: $32.89
Eye of Round: $29.40 (the price of beef is insane, even at Costco!)
Pork tenderloins: $18.77
Ice cream bars, variety pack: $19.99
Ice cream, almond bars: $15.99
Ice cream, Mega Sandwich pack: $16.99
Cheese; Mozza: $14.99
Cheese; Old Cheddar: $14.99
Cheese; cream, 4pk: $9.49
Iced tea mix: $9.99 (elsewhere, it costs anywhere from $12.99 to $15.99 that I’ve seen)
Bucket of Ghee: $41.99 (this is going to replace most of our cooking oils; we just can’t afford them, and Costco’s restaurant sized bucket of Ghee is an excellent price)
Hazelnuts: $11.49
Deodorant, 5pk: $14.99
Active dry yeast: $7.99 (with the new bread machine, we’re using it pretty much every day, so we need to stock up on yeast and flour now! 😊)
Toothbrushes: $16.99
AA batteries: regular price $25.99, but on sale for $19.99, + eco fee of $1.60
AAA batteries: same sale price of $19.99, + eco fee of 80¢
Arthritis acetaminophen pain killers: $19.99
24 hour allergy meds: $10.99
Ibuprofen, extra strength: $15.99
Butter chicken sauce, 2pk: $9.99
Spaghetti box: regular price, $13.49, on sale for $9.99
Tortillas, two 2pks: $9.99 each
Basmati rice: $15.99
Rotisserie chicken: 2 at $7.99 each
The subtotal for all that was $752.43, and the taxes came to $47.67 for the total of $800.10
That was really painful.
Then there was the stuff I got at Walmart. I went specifically for the puppy pads and carpet powder, but I also keep an eye out for other things, as needed. This time I got quite a few extras.
KD, 12pk: $9.47 That was an excellent sale price. KD is something the girls like for a quick cooking meal.
Ramen noodles, 24pk: $6.48 They were on sale for 27¢ each, which is almost pre-pandemic insanity price.
Clumping cat litter: $8.47 I really hope it works with TTT. The dust, just from opening the container, was insane. I so prefer the stove pellets as litter!
Argan oil: $7.97
Carpet powder, odor eliminator: $4.47
Carpet powder, deodorizing: $3.97
Soaker pad: $17.97 – to protect the new mattress cover!
Waterproof mattress cover, king size: $49.97
Puppy pads, 30″x30″: $26.97 With the bigger size, I need only one to cover the space under the desk
litter pan: $9.97 Since I took the one from the cat cage in the sun room to use under my desk, I needed to replace it, for when we have to keep cats before they go for spays and neuters.
Subtotal: $145.71
GST: $6.49
PST: $9.08
Total: $161.28
With having to get all the extra stuff to protect my bed, this was almost all “extra” purchases. Which is really frustrating that we have to do this.
TTT is now back in my room and tucked into her napping cave in my closet. I would be really, really happy if she started using the new litter! She always waits until I’m asleep before she goes, though, so I won’t know until morning.
And that’s our first stock up shopping trip for the month.
After I take the cats in to the vet clinic tomorrow morning, I’m heading into the city to meet a guy selling some small scaffolding. I might take advantage of that and swing by Costco to pick up 4 more bags of kibble. Then we’ll have to make another trip into the city to get the rest of our stocking up, including more litter pellets, and maybe even some more *gasp* groceries for ourselves!
These price increases are getting harder and harder to keep up with. With a fixed income, we’re running out of wiggle room. Especially since we expect to have car payments before winter. We so need a van. Having to make multiple trips, because we can only fit so much into my mother’s car, is a killer on the gas budget. Her car has horrible mileage, too!
Well, time to do my outside rounds before I have to tuck away any food that’s left in the kibble bowls in my room, for the overnight fasting.
It’s been a very long day.
The Re-Farmer
It could have been worse, though.
What a start to the morning.
No disaster with this kitten. This kitten was adorable and friendly, and decided my daughter’s fingers were delicious.
I was up rather early, after a restless night. I’m happy to say that I didn’t wake up by rolling over into a puddle on my bed, but there was a mess under my desk, right next to the litter box, instead. It was on the puppy pads, at least, but those were the last of them, so I set up the fan to blow on the area the messes are always on and hoped for the best until I could get more.
Today was our day to do a Costco run, but I wanted to clean the litter boxes after doing the morning wet cat food feeding, first. As I was mulling about, I could hear a kitten plaintively meowing outside my window. I looked out, but couldn’t see anything. It was too close to the wall.
To do the wet cat food, I lay out a towel on the end of my bed, then line up all the food bowls. At this point, all of the cats and kittens know what’s going on, and the kittens are crawling all over the towel and the food bowls. TTT is always with the kittens, while Marlee starts meowing from her perch on the window shelf, and Butterscotch and Nosencrantz start milling around the floor. With The Phantom in the room now, she has started to jump up on the bed in anticipation, too.
But not this morning. I only saw TTT with the milling kittens.
I looked around, but couldn’t see the other cats anywhere. I could still hear a kitten meowing plaintively outside, though, so I stuck my head in the window to look again.
I could see the kitten this time, milling around the cap of the septic tank.
Which is when I realized I was seeing way to clearly though the open window.
The screen was gone.
It was on the floor, below.
At that point, everything else planned when out the window. I let the girls know what happened, and they were able to head outside right away while I quickly got dressed. I did a head count on the kittens, and one of the tabbies was missing – that was the kitten I was hearing outside! There are so many others that look like it, I didn’t realize it was one of the inside kittens. Thankfully, it was not the kitten that’s slated to go to the vet tomorrow morning!
The girls got the kitten very quickly and one of them brought it in to me. My other daughter found The Phantom and got her inside. They both went back outside while I eventually got The Phantom to come to me and put her back in the isolation ward with the kittens, then went outside with the girls.
The main thing was that the cats due to go to the vet were all accounted for. But that left Butterscotch, Nosencrantz and Marlee outdoors.
I did see Nosencrantz, lurking under my window, but when she saw me, she went around the house. The girls tried to come closer, but she ran off to the outer hard, by the fire pit, with another cat.
While they kept looking, I put food out for the outside cats, hoping the sound of kibble hitting the trays would get their attention.
No such luck.
Eventually, we had to stop looking. I came back into my room and found The Phantom was really putting the cat proof screen mesh to the test. The window was now closed, but she was really trying to get out! I left my room back outside to look around again. When I came back, I found the kittens had discovered places they could climb that they’d never tried for before. Things were knocked about, and one kitten was at the top of the wall shelf. One of my display heads, and the hat it was wearing, was knocked onto my bed, and the kitten was milling about around an antique lamp that’s up there to be safe from the cats!
Then I saw the wet spot, in the middle of my bed.
I messaged a daughter to give me a hand. The first thing I had to do was get that kitten off the top of the shelf! I managed to get that done before my daughter got to my room, so she helped me strip my bed, including the mattress cover. Thankfully, I’d put puppy pads under the mattress cover, so the mattress itself was protected.
After that, my younger daughter had to finish packing for her house sitting venture, then we headed out. I was really glad she was with me and could respond to messages with my SIL. We were supposed to meet at a restaurant for lunch, but she mentioned the name of a different one than the one we’d met at last time. She was already there and letting us know what table she was at! So my daughter was able to clarify just which location we were at. We kept getting mixed up with restaurant names that started with S. 😄 At least it was easy to spot her car when we got there, and I was able to park right behind it.
After a lovely lunch (breakfast, for me), we moved my daughter’s stuff to my SIL’s car and we parted ways.
My first stop was the Walmart, since I had to pick up more puppy pads. I’ll do a separate post on the shopping. Then I did the Costco shopping, which was insanely expensive, before heading home.
Once at home and everything was unloaded and put away and the ground floor litter boxes cleaned (since I didn’t get to do them this morning!), I emptied 3 bags of kibble into the kibble bin, then fed the outside cats.
No sign of Marlee, Butterscotch or Nosenctrantz.
I’m not too concerned about Butterscotch. She was here when we moved in, so she would remember that this house is home, and the yard is a reliable place for food. She is, however, getting old and the indoor life has made her soft, so she’s at predator risk, if she goes too far. Same with Nosencrantz. She was an outside cat, and our yard was all she knew before coming indoors, so I don’t expect the Anxiety Bear to wander too far, but she’s been indoors for quite a long time now!
Marlee is the one that really concerns me. She was getting used to being around Nosencrantz and Butterscotch, but then the kittens got big enough to be active, and she really didn’t like Decimus and the kittens. Then TTT joined us for recovery, and she didn’t like the new addition. Finally, another kitten and The Phantom came in. Decimus, the kitten and Phantom are leaving tomorrow morning, but Marlee was just so unhappy with them being there, I’m afraid she won’t want to come back! She did survive on her own for 2 years, but she doesn’t know to at least stay close to the house, for food, water and shelter. With so many other cats and kittens around, she may not want to come over at all, though I do make sure there are kibble bowls set up further from the house, for the shier cats. Hopefully, she won’t wander too far.
I’ll go outside again to look for them when I do my evening rounds.
Meanwhile, we need to make sure that Decimus, The Phantom and the kitten don’t eat after 9pm. We usually do the evening feeding at around 8, so that should be okay. I have to be on the road by 7:30am to get them to the clinic, so the fast won’t be too onerous. I just have to make sure someone does the morning feeding in the isolation ward after I’m gone.
It’ll be just the kittens at that point, probably. While I was going in and out of my room, with kittens trying to escape, TTT politely asked to leave the room, so I let her. She’s been wandering around the house and, to my amazement, none of the other cats are bothering her! Not even Turmeric, who has gone out of her way to hunt down Nosencrantz, any time she’s managed to get into my room. She’s the main reason Nozencratnz stopped leaving my room in the first place. After she and Butterscotch recovered from being spayed, we started leaving my door open, and for the first while it was fine. Then suddenly, Turmeric just decided to go after Nozencrantz and that was it.
If TTT is fine with the other cats, there’s no reason to keep her in my room. I just hope she figured out to use the litter boxes there. She’ll have many to choose from.
I even got clumping clay litter for the litter box under my desk, as the tech that removed her staples suggested trying.
*sigh*
I really hope the cats are okay outside. I’d rather they weren’t, but they might actually be happier out there. I just want them to at least stay close to the house! At least we got The Phantom inside. Once she’s at her new home, and has spent 2 weeks indoors in the barn that will be home base, she will be free to go indoors or outdoors as she wants.
As an aside, while I was writing this, Shadow in the Dark climbed up on my chest. After watching my cursor move on my screen for a while, she curled up and is now asleep under my neck. I think Shadow was the kitten that got outside this morning.
It most definitely could have been much worse.
Oh, while I was in the city, my husband checked on the my room frequently. He also made a change on the window screen. It is designed to be removed by pressing downwards, then pulling the top inwards. That’s what Nosencrantz managed to do just by scratching at it. The simple solution is to just put the screen in upside down. It now requires being pushed up to free the bottom; something a cat isn’t going to be able to do.
That’s something I should have done after we switched to the cat free mesh. Until recently, the box fan had been in the window. The cats couldn’t get at the screen, so I didn’t bother.
*sigh*
Live and learn, I guess.
The Re-Farmer
I headed out this afternoon, and got distracted by many adorable fluff balls.
I’ve only recently started using Instagram to upload my photos, since I’m running out of storage space on my WordPress account. WP does allow the purchase of extra storage space, without having to upgrade plans, but the cost for 50G is Cdn$68.54 PER MONTH!!!! – billed yearly. Which is insane. If I upgraded my plan to Business, it would cost Cdn$33/month, billed yearly, and that would come with 50G of storage.
So… uploading to Instagram it is.
The problem is, when I upload photos – especially groups of photos – the images are often corrupted. They seem fine right up until I hit “share”, and when I check them, there’s often something wrong with them. Some are so bad, most of the photo can’t even be made out. I thought the issue might be my computer, but when I double checked using my phone, the images were still corrupted. Today, I had to reload this next batch of photos three times before it worked, and even then, the third one is corrupted. At least it’s still visible, though!
These were my distractions.
That orange and white kitten is successfully socialized, and absolutely adorable. The tuxedo in Baby Jail is not socialized at all! I am happy that they are going in and out of the cage comfortably, though. If we ever need to suddenly keep a cat in there until we can take it somewhere, they will already be comfortable in the space.
Octomom’s babies are all over the place these days. The one using a brick as a pillow is just too adorable!
After I took those photos, I started walking slowly in between the cat shelters, and the orange and white kitten came over. I was able to pet him and pick him up, and he was purring up a storm. This made the littles very curious, and they started to come out from under the cat house to see what was going on. That they were willing to come within a couple of feet of me was quite encouraging.
I had to tear myself away from the kittens and get to work! It’s taken forever for me to get back to those poplars I cut for the vertical supports on the trellis beds.
I cut the logs to about 7’2″ lengths, in case the bottom ends need to be trimmed flat. In the first photo is the finished stack of 7′ lengths. I got three out of one log. Most of them got me two lengths. In the corner of the photo is the stack of log ends, or sections that were just too crooked to use.
It was as I was finishing up that I realized I was feeling really dizzy and getting the shakes. It was hot, yes, but “only” about 23C/73F Then I remembered.
I’d had a late breakfast, so when I lay down for a nap at about lunch time, I didn’t eat first. I forgot to eat something before heading outside.
Because I’m an idiot that way.
So I quickly cleaned up then headed in for some food.
When I came back out, I had to figure out the best way to get the logs to where the trellis beds are going to be. I got out the loppers and started clearing a path through the spruce grove. At one point, I had to get the baby chain saw to cut away a fallen tree that was half buried in the grass.
Once I was reasonably sure there weren’t any branches, bushes or small trees to get tangled on, I grabbed a log and carried it over. It was one of the bigger ones, but I could carry it on my shoulder easily enough. The problem was the distance. There was no way I was going to be able to carry them all out like that, without wearing myself out too quickly.
So for the other larger logs, I grabbed a rope to drag them with, which you can see in the second picture.
Of course, if I’m going to do this to make it easier on myself, I really need to make sure there are no stumps of branches to dig into the ground! I adjusted the rope to turn the log a couple of times. In the third photo, you can see all the grass that had been pulled up by what turned out to be two “anchors” on the log! After I got those facing up, the rest of the drag went much more smoothly!
I also took a video of it, to give an idea of just how far the logs need to be carried. For this, I chose a log light enough that I could carry it with one hand, while taking video with the other.
Also, my phone’s microphone really picks up the sound of my breathing! 😄
There’s a brief pause as I show were I had to clear the fallen tree. Just a little one, but too long to just move aside.
In the end, I was only able to move three lengths over. I used the rope to drag the third, bigger one over, after I took the video. It was just too hot for that kind of work. I can’t handle the heat like I used to!
I’m going to have to work on moving these early in the morning, before things get hot. I won’t be able to do much over the next couple of days. Tomorrow, not only am I going into the city for our first monthly stock up shop, but I’m losing a daughter for almost a month. She’ll be house sitting for my brother and his wife while they go on a trip of a lifetime, and going over early so they can show her what she needs to do and what to keep an eye on. So I’m losing one of the more able bodied members of our household!
Looking at the long range forecast, though, I see things have changed. We’re going to be getting hotter again. There’s even a forecast of 30C/86F on the weekend!
Which will be great for the garden. Especially for the squash and melons. The longer we have with warmer temperatures and no frost, the better our chances of having something to harvest.
Well, I’ll figure out what to do during the heat. We really need to get progress done on those beds! Plus, if I can get enough dead spruces cut down, I hope to get more high raised beds built, too, replacing some of the current low raised beds.
At the rate we’ve been going, though, I’ll be lucky to get just one trellis bed done!
The Re-Farmer
Last time, I spotted one sleepy bee on the volunteer sunflower.
This morning, there were two!
They were very sluggishly moving around in the cool of the morning. I believe we were around 16C/61F at the time I took this photo.
I also got to see all eight of Octomom’s babies this morning. They were certainly not sleepy!
It looks like there will be at least 2 long haired tabbies in the bunch. I’m really, really hoping we can socialize these ones, while they are still so small. It gets harder, the bigger they get!
I also saw the kitten that lost its eye. It’s actually looking much better. It had been stuck shut, yesterday, but today it was wide open. There was still some gunk under the lower lid. I got a picture of it looking straight at me, so once the photo was uploaded, I could get a good look. The inner eyelids were visible and a healthy pink colour. Even the tissue behind was a healthy looking pink, rather than that alarming white colour it was before. I won’t post the picture here, but if you do want to see, I’ve posted it on our Ko-fi page.
I also saw that “new” kitten I caught a glimpse of, earlier! It kept running away, so I wasn’t able to get a picture, bit it is most definitely a calico. More of a muted calico. Instead of black, it has really dark grey patches. I saw it with another white kitten with really dark grey patches, but I think I’ve seen that one before, and that it’s from another litter. I’m not sure, though.
As for the cats that are now indoors, The Phantom is quite enjoying love and attention. TTT, however, is just a bundle of nerves. She loves attention, but just can’t sit still, then runs off, like she did when she was still outside.
Also, she is such a long, skinny, snake-like cat! So very gangly!
Last night, it seems the rosemary I sprinkled on my mattress actually helped. Even the kittens mostly stayed off of it. Between that and the fan, my mattress was finally dry. I decided to actually make the bed (with some strategically places puppy pads under the mattress cover, just in case) and not sleep on the couch again.
It was… less painful, at least. As far as the bed went, anyhow.
Not so much when it came to kittens.
I did not get much sleep last night.
I still kept the fan going on low, which is now set up on my craft table. I tried turning it off, but the room immediately became way too stuffy, even though the window was open. So I turned it back on, and basically used my sheet to block the wind from hitting my face and ears; wind in my ears causes horrible ear aches. Unfortunately, the kittens saw the sheet on my face as fair game, so when they had their run-around-like-crazy time of the night, they would sometimes run right over my face!
Once they settled, though, I still had a hard time sleeping. I was constantly paranoid that I would roll over into a huge puddle.
Well, that didn’t happen.
Instead, this morning, I found a huge puddle under my desk. TTT had dug around the puppy pads, so while she managed to wet three of them, she also left a huge puddle on the carpet. While cleaning that up, I found a kitten sized “gift” in a corner behind the litter tray. I ended up having to take out all the puppy pads I had under there. Then I used the last of the puppy pads to protect the floor. I won’t be able to get more until tomorrow.
I was very nervous doing my morning rounds. Especially as I stayed out longer to harvest onions. Once inside, I made breakfast and ate in the cat free zone, so that was even more time out of my room. I truly expected to come in and find a big wet spot on my bed again. I’m happy to report, it’s still clean and dry!
In fact, I might even try and get some of that sleep I missed out on last night. I’m falling asleep in my chair right now!
The Re-Farmer
One of the problems we’ve had is cats getting into the garden beds. They seemed to especially enjoy laying down on the onions!
As a result, we have a lot of onions with broken stems. Under normal circumstances, that would be a sign that the onions are maturing and ready to be harvested. If the stems are prematurely broken, the plants act as if they’ve reached maturity and won’t get any bigger.
I have been leaving them for the last while, which gives them time to develop that thicker, dry outer skin, but I didn’t want to leave them too long. So today, I harvested the first batch.
This is almost all of our yellow onions, though I did leave the ones that did not have broken stems. Normally, I would not have laid them out with the greens facing in and overlapping like that, but if the greens were hanging off the edges, they’d be way too tempting for cats to play with and drag around! Onions are toxic to cats, so we don’t want any sort of temptation like that.
After a couple of days, we’ll braid them and hang them in the cat free zone inside, aka our living room.
The potatoes that had been curing on these screens were put in cardboard boxes to store and are now also in the cat free zone. We’ll have to eat them fairly quickly. I didn’t bother picking over them to separate any for the root cellar. There just isn’t enough to make that worthwhile.
I did use some of the red potatoes with breakfast. I now know that the Red Thumb potatoes are not really suitable for making hash browns. 😄 They really wanted to mash, instead! Still tasted good, though!
The Re-Farmer
What a difference a warmer night makes!
Quite a few of the Roma VF could be harvested, and there was even a fair bit of beans to pick. I found a single ripe Black Beauty, and a couple of Indigo Blues. The Black Beauties are determinates, so when they finally start ripening for real, there should be lots of them all at once, like the Roma, but gosh, they’re taking a long time to get there! We might end up harvesting them all to ripen indoors, if the weather doesn’t hold.
Not too much action with the summer squash. There are a lot of female yellow patty pans blooming, which I’m hand pollinating, so we should have more of those later, but it looks like the green patty pans are almost done, and the green zucchini… well, those never really did recover from the slugs.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing all sorts of kittens around. In fact, last night, I think I spotted two “new” kittens, including a calico! Definitely much older kittens. We have never seen Sprout’s babies, so those might be hers. They ran off before I could get a good look at them.
Some of the older kittens, while still quite shy, are at least letting me come a bit closer before they run away. When it comes to feeding them, that usually means dashing under the water bowl shelter for the kibble tray there. That one is a favourite for all the kittens. Especially the littlest ones. Those would be Octomom’s kittens, and they were hanging out under the cat house, waiting their turn at the tray.
In the photo above, the tuxedo on the left is the one that lost its eye. The lids now appear to be closed, and it looks gummy, but it’s hard to tell. It will not let me come any closer than I did when I got the picture.
With so many cats and kittens showing up at different times, I have given up entirely on trying to get a head count. While the kittens may be closer to the house, a lot of the adults seem to be moving on. I haven’t even seen Gooby in a while, and he used to be among those that greeted me every morning. Now I’ve got a couple of white and grey males that are my morning greeters.
When it comes to the yard cat population, the adults seem to not like being around when it starts to get too crowded, and simply move on to new territory.
At least, that’s what I hope they’re doing. There’s no way to know what’s happened to them, once they disappear. I like to think they found new homes on their own, on one of the neighboring farms.
The Re-Farmer
What an incredibly moody atmosphere this morning!
This photo was taken shortly after 8am.
It was this wild combination of fog and bright sunshine. Just beautiful!
We were supposed to reach a low of around 11C/52F last night, but when I checked my phone at about 7am, one app was telling me it was 7C/45F. Another was saying we were at 10C/50F, but I think the 7C was the more accurate one.
With that sort of chill, I was not expecting to harvest anything this morning. Certainly, no tomatoes ripened overnight! Yet, I did find this!
There were quite a few larger Gold Ball turnips (they are being thinned by harvesting), and a single radish was ready to pick. In that bed, there are almost no beets coming up, and I’m not really seeing any spinach, either. I think the slugs got to them. But the radishes are coming up, at least. The others are still looking small, long and skinny. There was just this one that was ready to pick.
I also spotted this sleepy guy.
It was barely moving in the colder temperatures. It’ll be warmed by the sun, soon enough. According to my computer’s weather app (I really should get a thermometer for outside my window!), it’s 13C/55F, and we’re expecting a high of 21C/70F.
While checking the purple corn (which we are leaving to dry on the stalks, to collect seed), I could see the Red Swan beans we’d planted among the corn are getting bigger, with lots of flowers. I also finally spotted these!
These were planted late, specifically for their nitrogen fixing properties. I was not expecting to actually get a harvest from them, yet here they are! We should be able to start harvesting beans in a few days! I hope they taste good, because we ended up with a lot of these.
While checking on the old kitchen garden, one of the things I regularly do is look up into the lilac bush that the luffa is climbing, and try to see the little bitty luffa that are developing. There’s one that’s resting on a lilac twig, and it looks like it’s been damaged by the wind rubbing them together.
As I was trying to see among the leaves, I realized there was a much larger gourd developing, high up. I went around the other side of the wattle weave bed to try and see it better, only to discover this one.
It’s huge! Easily a foot long. It is completely hidden by greenery on the other side.
With a gourd this big, we might actually have a fully mature and tried out luffa to harvest by the end of the growing season! As long as the frost holds off.
As I was finishing up around the sun room before going inside, I saw a few of Octomom’s babies emerging from under the cat house. I also saw the black and white garage kitty, way off at the bowl under the grape vines. Nice to see that one coming to the house, finally!
I was in the sun room, just about to go inside, when another cat came up, wanting attention.
It was The Phantom! She’s back!!!
It took a bit of convincing, but when I opened the doors, she came into the house. I let her explore for a bit – and get sniffed at by other cats – when my daughter was able to pick her up and we put her in my bedroom.
The “isolation ward” is getting very crowded.
She’s settling in, though, and loving attention. As I write this, she is behind me on my office chair, keeping my butt warm!
The new kitten we brought in has no problem with her. They would remember each other. I think Decimus still recognized her, too. I’m not sure about Ghosty; they would have met before we brought Ghosty in, but she was so sick, and it was long ago enough that I’m sure she doesn’t remember Phantom anymore, even if her scent might still be familiar.
A couple of Decimus’ kittens were making themselves big, and Tin Whistle even hissed at her, but they now seem used to her and are ignoring her.
Snarly Marlee has been practically living on the window shelf. She is not happy with so many cats in the room.
I’ve no idea how TTT is; they would know each other, too, but TTT is in her favourite sleeping spot in my closet.
Speaking of TTT.
I am not happy with her.
I slept on the couch again last night. I had my mattress uncovered, with “Pet Fresh” carpet powder on the damp spots. I hoped it would be left alone, but when I came in this morning, there was a huge new pee spot, right in the middle of the mattress. There was also a “gift” next to the litter box under my desk, with a puppy pad all bunched up around it.
I ended up taking the box fan out of the window and found a way to set it up directly on my mattress. If nothing else, the breeze it’s creating is making most of my mattress an unpleasant place to be! There is one corner that’s got their bed blanket on it, and they’re not even using that, all that much. The kittens are playing around the fan, though, but they’re more interested in the cave it creates in my wall shelf behind it. A spot they are allowed to play in.
I chatted with the Cat Lady this morning, very happy to pass on the news about Phantom. I also told her about what TTT is doing. She told me that this is apparently common with cats that lose a front leg. They can’t dig in the litter, so they go just anywhere. We didn’t have that problem at all with Ginger. After he had his removed and came indoors, he used a litter box right away, even though he’d never seen one before. As for TTT, considering how much she digs at the puppy pads to bury her poop, clearly, that is not the issue with her.
Butterscotch, meanwhile, is happy the box fan it out of my window. She’s contentedly laying on the window ledge, looking outside. I expected it to be Nosencrantz, considering how much she’s been trying to get behind the fan, but Butterscotch is more Alpha that Nosencrantz. 😄 Nosencrantz is in her favourite spot in the shelf beside the window.
Well, I hope things work out over the next while. Just a little while longer. Then Decimus, the no-name outside kitten and Phantom will all get spayed, then taken to their new home.
It’s a start.
The Re-Farmer
Well, it took several hours longer than expected, but the tomato sauce got done!
I filled my large colander with the ripest of the Roma VF we have laying on a screen in the cat free zone, as well as the ripest Indigo Blue Chocolate and Black Beauties, filling the colander to almost overflowing.
After going through a number of recipes, I decided to not blanch them first. The Roma got topped, halved and seeded first, then went into my larger stock pot. I considered doing the other tomatoes separately, but didn’t want to mess with more pots and just mixed them all together.
When we processed tomatoes last year, we blanched and cooked them, before running them through a sieve, so any seeds were no longer viable by the time they went into the compost heap. This time, I seeded them first. I expect we’ll be having some volunteers in the compost pile, next year! 😄
For the seasoning, I kept things simple. I harvested some fresh yellow onions, picking ones the cats rolled on and broke the stems, since those were not going to be getting any bigger. They were a decent size, though, and I only used three of the bunch I picked. The rest got braided and are now hanging in the cat free zone (the living room) with the garlic to cure.
I grabbed a garlic bulb that turned out to have two huge cloves, as well as a bunch of fresh thyme from the pot in the living room. Along with that, I added some freshly ground salt; my husband picked up new salt and pepper grinders to replace our old and breaking ones, and got a container of Himalayan pink salt chunks for the salt grinder, too. I also added a bit of sugar and lemon juice.
Once the tomatoes had stewed long enough that the skins could be easily removed, I sautéed the onions and whole garlic cloves in some ghee until the onions were translucent. I was going to strain the tomatoes through a fine colander I have, but I couldn’t find it, so it went through a large sieve, instead. This sieve has a quite fine mesh on it. I don’t know how much difference it would have made if I’d used the colander, since there really wasn’t a lot of pulp in there, but the end result was more like tomato juice than tomato sauce!
Which is why it ended up taking much longer than expected to cook it down to a more sauce like consistency.
All those tomatoes had filled my larger stock pot. By the time I strained out the skins, it barely filled half of my smaller stock pot. I cooked it down until it seemed thick enough, then poured the sauce into sterilized 750ml canning jars. I was able to fill two, plus maybe a third of the last jar. That one got a twist off lid. In the photo, the whitish chunks are the broken up pieces of garlic cloves. Mmmmm….
They are now sitting out to cool over night, and then they’re going into the fridge. There isn’t enough there to bother actually canning the sauce.
I think with the next batch, though, I might take the time to make tomato paste again – this time on the hot plate on the dining table, to free up the kitchen, like we did last year. I don’t expect to be making as much as we did last year, and we only got a dozen 125ml jars of paste at the time. They went over so very well, though, they didn’t last long. That’s why my original intention had been to grow so many paste tomatoes this year, and it just didn’t happen. Hopefully, we’ll be more prepared, next year!
Altogether, this took about 5 or 6 hours to finish. If we’d been working with more tomatoes, I would have broken out our giant stock pot – the one that’s big enough to brine a turkey, with room to spare – to cook down the tomatoes. That’s what I used to make the paste last year.
We still have plenty of tomatoes resting on the screen in the living room and, of course, lots more on the vines, so we will be doing this again, probably a couple more times.
I did get a bit of a nap in before I started, but I am still so very tired. I’ll expect I’ll be sleeping on the couch again tonight, too. The family did keep checking on my room, and my husband even had Snarly Marlee in the living room to give her a break from the kittens for a while, and there were no new messes. Hopefully, things will stay that way, but my mattress is still damp from the previous ones.
I so look forward to getting cats and kittens adopted out!
Speaking of which, still no sign of The Phantom. The Cat Lady and I have been discussing alternatives if she doesn’t show up, and tomorrow she plans to drop off a trap for us.
Still no interest in the kittens she shared photos of.
Since they are friendlier and easier to catch, she’s going to see about booking us to get a bunch of males fixed, next.
As much as I’d like to get the outside cats fixed and adopted out, we really need to adopt out more inside cats. Some of them are inside only because they were going to get taken and adopted out, and it just didn’t end up happening.
Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.
The Re-Farmer
First, the good stuff.
This was this morning’s harvest.
Just tomatoes, almost all Romas, and a few patty pan squash, but it was still quite a haul.
The other good stuff is that the kitten I brought in yesterday did just fine, overnight. It was running around and playing with the other kittens when I came into my room this morning.
Which leads me to the not so good stuff.
I had to sleep on the couch last night.
I thought we had been doing well, but in the space of just a few minutes, my nice, clear, dry bed suddenly had a massive puddle in the middle. Not only was it large enough that I couldn’t even sleep on another part of the bed, even though it’s a king size, but it was in a spot that didn’t have any puppy pads under the sheets to protect the mattress.
The girls helped me juggle kittens and strip the bed, but as I soaked up as much as I could with more puppy pads, they were the ones that suggested I sleep on the couch. After getting it as dry as we could, we took off the mattress protector, too, and got everything in the laundry. We laid out more puppy pads, absorbent side down, then carefully covered them with a blanket to keep them in place. Then I left the room with the window fan going on maximum.
I did not get much sleep last night, though I have to admit, it was rather nice sleeping in the cat free zone. I was awakened early by cat arguments. Having had just a couple of hours of sleep, I got up long enough to feed all the cats, inside and out, before going back to bed on the couch.
While doing the feeding in my room, the bed was clear and nothing was destroyed, so I was very encouraged. So I went back to the couch and managed to get almost a couple more hours of sleep.
When I came back to my room, I found a “gift” on my bed. On the blanket, next to the towel I laid out under the kibble bowls while dividing up the wet cat food.
At least it was easy to clean up, but really??? There are so many litter boxes, but noooooo. Gotta use my bed!
Then I sat on the side of the bed to take my supplements, only to discover a wet spot with my butt. The colour and fuzziness of the blanket had hidden it. At least that was on top of a puppy pad!
I am getting so very frustrated.
I did get a chance to chat with the Cat Lady a bit, letting her know that the kitten did well inside. As long as the kitten is about 3 pounds, they will spay her, and I think she’s pretty close to that. With her being inside and getting regular wet and dry cat food, I don’t think it will be an issue by the time of the appointment.
No sign of Phantom this morning, though. We’re already discussing options, if she doesn’t show up in time. I’ll simply grab one of the friendly males. I wouldn’t be able to grab any of the other females. They’re not socialized enough.
Oh, just heard from the Cat Lady again. She says she will drop a trap off for us, tomorrow. If we can snag any of the moms with older kittens that would be good. Still, it would be ideal of Phantom comes back and we grab her.
In other cat related things…
This is the kitten we thought was female that turned out to be male.
What is it all the friendly ones are male? It was the same thing last year. The females are almost universally standoffish, while the males have been more easily socialized and love attention.
Then there are those that are just plain feral. Not semi-feral. Just feral. Like this one.
I spotted this one when I finally got out to do my morning rounds. Brussel’s kittens seem to have moved into the garage, more or less. This is the shier one, and the first time I’ve been able to get a good look at him/her. I had to move slow and zoom right in to get a picture, so it’s not a good image at all. What unique face markings!
I’ve seen its orange and white sibling closer to the house. I think I even saw it in the kibble house. This one, however, stays around the garage, and that’s it. I didn’t top up the food in the bowl I set up in the garage this morning, though. Hopefully, this one will get hungry enough to brave coming to the house. I also saw Octomom’s littles. Not all of them, but they seem to have taken up residence – at least for part of the day – under the cat house.
While doing my rounds this morning, I was pleased to find just one fallen branch. We had more rain and high winds last night, but it seems that weird climate bubble we have over us has protected us. The winds did knock quite a few crab apples off the trees, though. This morning, on one of my local gardening groups, several people mentioned their gardens were completely destroyed. One posted a photo of her crab apple tree, its apples knocked to the ground and lying next to hail almost as big as the apples! So far that I’ve seen, she was the only one that also reported damage to her home. Just a broken window, thankfully.
Today should be quite a bit more pleasant. I plan to be doing stuff indoors, though. Specifically, making tomato sauce. Lack of sleep is catching up to me, though, and I’m dropping off as I type this. I think I will try napping again. I think I can squeeze into the dry corner of my bed around the kittens. I’m afraid that if I try napping on the couch again, I’ll come back to more puddles or piles!
The tomato sauce can wait a couple of hours. I’m all out of energy drinks, and feel like I’m about to drop right on my keyboard!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 