I popped outside briefly through the sunroom, and heard quite a bit of loud squeaking. It was most definitely coming from under the cat house. On my return, there was no more squeaking, so I decided to stick my phone’s camera at one of the spots the cats have worn down as they go in and out from under there.
All I saw was this.
Then the phone got attacked by a claw, and much growling ensued.
I’d say Caramel just had her babies under there. It’s probably quite cool, compared to the inside of the cat house right now. I had been wondering if she were going to have her litter soon. I think she was the last pregnant looking mama at this point.
I’m extra glad we put bricks under the skids to try and level it off on the lightly sloped ground. This corner would have more room under there because of them.
I hope mom and babies do all right. Unfortunately, she’s right where the skunks also scoot under when we try to startle them away. I don’t expect her to keep them there for long.
Decimus has been more comfortable leaving the babies to sleep and spend her time away from them, but the kittens are now also getting more active! While Decimus and the other cats were meowing for their evening wet cat food feeding – she has already caught on to the routine! – the bitties started squirming around and making their way out of the cat cave!
We’re still working on a spring cleaning in the house, with the tax assessor coming in next week as our motivation (I’m sure the assessor has seen far worse!). One of the things I seriously need to get done is vacuum my carpet. It gets so bad, so quickly, but with Decimus and the babies in the room, I’m not about to start the vacuum and scare the bejeebers out of them. We’ll be putting them in the cat carrier and keeping them in the living room, which is still the plant room and barricaded from cats, unless under supervision, so it will be a safe place for them. Today, however, we’ve been washing all the blankets, towels and mats set out for the cats to use, including from inside the carrier. So my floor is a job that will wait until tomorrow!
I did have an unexpected and sad surprise, though. While gathering the garbage and recycling together for a dump run, I passed through the sun room and found a white and grey kitten on the floor. A dead kitten. It was bigger than Decimus’ babies, but I don’t think it was old enough for its eyes to be open yet. Oddly, its lower jaw was missing. It’s as if a cat brought it into the sun room for us to do something about it. Of course, I looked around for other kittens, but there was nothing. No clue as to who the mother was, either.
So I quickly buried it with Keith under the white lilacs. We still have the boards and the concrete pedestal over the grave, but I just moved the pedestal aside, and moved one of the boards – though I had to pull up a lot of greenery just to access it – then put it all back after burying the little one.
That done, I got the rest of the garbage and recycling together, loaded it up on my mother’s car, and headed to the dump. My husband had asked me to pick something up for him at the grocery store, so when I got home, I grabbed the newly emptied 18.9L water jug to refill and headed out again. Before I did, he quietly told me he’d changed his mind. Instead of picking something up for him, he asked me to pick something up for our younger daughter as a surprise treat. She has been doing the bulk of the cleaning while I’ve been mostly doing the running around. Her sister is still working at night (when her computer and drawing tablet are less likely to overheat and stop working), so her contributions are limited to things that won’t wake the rest of us up. My younger daughter is a great lover of cheesecake, so that was one thing I looked for. I ended up getting her a caramel chocolate cheesecake. Then, as an extra surprise, I picked up a couple of trays of sushi. Yeah, it was just grocery store sushi, but it’s still a treat!
There was a time when none of us would touch sushi (my husband still won’t). Years ago, when we were still homeschooling, I’d take the girls to a weekly park day with other homeschoolers. For years, we didn’t have a vehicle and took public transit. Between the bus and LRT connections, it took about a 1 1/2 hours to get there, and we often got to the park about 45 minutes before anyone else did. It was either that, or be almost an hour later than everyone else. Then it took another hour to get home. Same busses, same connections. It just happened to take less time, later in the day.
Yeah, transit sucked. When we did finally get a vehicle, the same trip took only 10 minutes.
In between connections, we would sometimes stop to pick up food. One day we were looking at the sushi displays, and they looked so beautiful and delicious, we decided to buy some to have for lunch before the other homeschoolers showed up. California rolls, if I remember correctly. We were quite eager and had high expectations.
We each had one piece, and that was it. I couldn’t even finish mine.
The killer was the cold rice. We just couldn’t handle eating cold rice.
So there we were, with a mostly full tray of sushi, when another transit dependant mom and her son showed up. When we found out they liked sushi, we offered it to them. They very enthusiastically accepted.
It was years before we were willing to try eating sushi again. I’m not sure what changed, but this time we liked it. Even grocery store sushi! Cold rice no longer bothered us. Very odd.
Now that we live out here, the only sushi places are in the city, and we have yet to have the opportunity to try one. So grocery store sushi remains our only option! I know grocery store sushi is treated as a bit of a joke, but we like it just fine.
Today, the grocery store happened to be freshly stocked with several larger combo trays, and I picked out two of different ones. Before leaving for home, I messaged my daughter to let her know I was on my way and would be pulling up to the house to unload. Then I told her that after unloading, we could stop for her treat! She was quite surprised and very happy with both the cheesecake and the sushi, and I made sure to tell her how much her dad and I appreciated her hard work. I know how hot, sweaty and miserable it can get, and I wanted to make sure to thank her!
I’m so glad our daughter chose to move out here with us. Taking care of this place turned out to be a much bigger job than any of us expected. We did not have any illusions that the place would be “perfect”, as my mother kept saying it was, but were still unprepared for just how neglected it had become. My brothers did their best, but there was no way they could even know about some issues, without actually living here, and my mother was in complete denial. Since my husband cannot physically do a lot, it would have been just me, and it would have been beyond what I could keep up with. My daughters gave up quite a bit to come out here with us, and I am grateful.
Snarly Marlee, taking a break from snarling at Decimus!
She’s doing quite well, actually. She’s been sleeping with me more often, and has even been making like she wants to leave the room, though when I open the door for her, she tends to back off.
As for Decimus, the other cats are getting used to her. I’ve seen her and Nosencrantz, both on top of the cat cage, next to each other. They were eyeing each other, but not being aggressive in any way. Even Butterscotch seems to have accepted her presence.
When other cats try to come into the room, though, they are not sure what to make of the new family! Leyendecker has come over to the cat cave, sniffing at Decimus, only to leap in astonishment and run away when the kittens started mewing. Other cats dash in ahead of me, see Decimus, freeze, then run out of the room again.
Very strange!
Meanwhile, today we continue to catch up on house stuff. One of my daughter’s goals is to mop the kitchen floor (a difficult thing, since the lino is worn down to the subfloor in places) before we put the interlocking foam mats down in front of the sink and the stove.
Last night, I came into the dining room to find this.
*sigh*
It’s not even out of the packaging yet, and already it’s being torn up by the cats! I’m hoping it will at least last until the next Costco trip. I believe they still have the heavy duty shop mats in stock. The cats shouldn’t be able to claw those up. At least, not right away. If Costco doesn’t have them in stock anymore, I did see them at a local hardware store, though that was months ago, and I don’t know if they regularly stock them.
There is just something about these mats that the cats can’t resist!
I couldn’t even see the other two, wrapped up in Decimus. She now leaves the cave more often and wanders around the room, much to Snarly Marlee’s dismay! Poor Marlee. She’ll be sitting on her stool next to her own cat cave, snarling away; Decimus just ignores her and keeps coming up to her, curiously.
Usually, this happens around 2 or 3am.
I finally took the time to look up Decimus. Turns out it’s a very old name, going back to ancient Rome, and means “tenth” or “tenth born”, so the tenth son born into a family would be named Decimus. It’s also a character in Warhammer, and the name of a famous Victorian architect, Decimus Burton. I should remember to ask my daughters where they got the name from. I don’t think they’ve ever played Warhammer, but they probably know about Decimus Burton.
Along with the adorable kitties inside, we’ve been seeing the outside kitties around the house! They hide under the cat house when we come out, but after my daughters watered the garden yesterday, my younger daughter was actually able to touch one before it hissed and ran off. As I was getting the kibble ready this morning, I could see three of them playing in the water bowl shelter. After I put kibble out and put away the container, I turned around to see one of the mostly white kitten eating at the tray under the water bowl shelter, with Brussel. I saw another little head pop out from under the cat house, only to back off when it saw me, so I delayed refreshing the water bowls under after I finished my morning rounds.
I’m really glad they are starting to come close to the house. They are much safer here, and the chances of socializing them increases as well.
We’re starting to run low on kibble, so I’ve decided that I’ll head to Walmart today to pick up more, as well as Canadian Tire to get more litter pellets. Work outside is going to be delayed a bit, though. I found out last night from my brother that an assessor will be coming out next week. She’ll be going through and measuring every room in the house (with a laser measurer, so it’ll be fast). We’ll, we’re not exactly good at that “housekeeping” thing, so this is an excuse to finally do some major cleaning over the next 4 days. Which is not easy to do with so many cats! The girls are going to focus on the upstairs and the basement, while I start on the main floor. Hmm. This would be a good time to rearrange my husband’s bedroom. That room is so small, it would involve moving half the furniture out completely. Mostly, I want to make it so that, when we finally get the plumber in to work on our bath tub faucet and taps, he can access it from the other side, if necessary. We should have had him in long ago, but getting ear mite medication for 16 cats took up the budget, and then some, even with my daughter helping pay for the vet bill.
Well, we’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to go stock up on some more cat food. Mamas and babies need to be fed!
Considering it took me two days to do a relatively small area, I figured it was worth a video!
I am so glad I finally got this done. There was so much dead thatch in there, I spent more time emptying the bad into the wagon, then hauling it away, than actually mowing.
We had another lovely, cool night last night. As expected, I had a hard time getting going in the morning, so the girls were kind enough to take care of feeding the outside cats. By the time I was pain killered up enough and ready to head out, I didn’t bother switching out the memory cards on the trail cam.
I did, however, get back to working on mowing last year’s grass. It took all day, but I finally got it done! What a huge job it was, but all that tall grass and dried thatch from last year is cut, and almost all the clippings hauled away. When there was just a small triangle of tall grass left, I gave in. I set the mower as high as it could go and went over the tall grass a couple of times. Then I took the bag off and mowed the whole remaining section. I really should have put the bag back on and gone over it again to pick up the thickest areas of grass clippings, but I just didn’t have the energy left for it.
It’s all done, and I now have huge amounts of grass clippings available for the garden. Because of how thick last year’s dead grass was, it’s mostly dry clippings, too. For all that the area looked so green, there actually was very little live grass in there. Now that it’s cut, and most of the dense clippings removed, it will have a chance to recover. All we need now is a good rain!
We have a 45% chance of rain tomorrow afternoon.
I figure, we might get a few drops.
The garden is going to get its watering, just in case. The girls will be taking care of that, though! I’m done for the day.
After taking a break, I went back to the mowing, planning to stop when I ran out of the third refill on gas.
I didn’t quite make it. Just too tired! Working through that super tall grass involved a lot of back and forth-ing, and at times, the bag would be full within just 3 or 4 feet. It felt like I spent more time emptying the bag than mowing. I definitely spent more time trudging to the main garden area to dump the clippings than mowing. I did get all the necessary mulching done, though, and have been working on a second pile of clippings.
Once everything was put way, it was time to feed the outside cats, so I took care of that, too. Which is when I spotted these guys.
At first, it was just the one mostly white kitten at the food bowl, then the other three emerged from under the spirea. You can just barely see the black and white one on the other side of not-Junk Pile’s front leg.
That other white and grey one has really distinctive markings on one side! The other side is pretty much all white.
I’ve seen these kittens in a group of 6, but I think this litter is just the 4 of them. I think the other two are from another litter, but I have no idea who the mama might be.
From the size of the kitten I saw with Brussel, I think we’ll be seeing those ones around the kibble bowls too, pretty soon!
I was pretty tired when I finally came in, but it was after I’d sat for a while and had supper that I realized I will probably paying for today’s progress. My entire body stiffened up to the point that I could barely walk when I finally got up again. Yes, I did take pain killers, but it wasn’t pain that was giving me trouble. My joints just didn’t want to move! Of course, the only way to take care of that is to force them to move until the limber up again, but until that happens, I’m hobbling and lurching around like a broken automaton.
I keep telling myself to go to bed early, so I can get an early start on the day, only to find myself still up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Or awakened around that time by cats. Decimus is wandering around more often when her kittens are asleep, and that sets Marlee of into continue snarling and growling. Decimus just ignores her.
Now that the mats are trimmed off of her, and most of her fur is gone, we’re getting to see what an incredibly tiny cat Decimus is! Small in stature, but also very thin. I’m hoping that having a kibble bowl right next to her and her kittens, plus regular wet cat food, will get her filling out soon. I don’t think she’s going to grow any larger in size, though. She would be about a year and a bit old right now, and should be at her adult size.
I see the other cats have been fussy again, and didn’t eat much of their share of the wet cat food. More for Decimus, later! 😄
Okay. Time to pain killer up and try to get some sleep!
We dipped to 10C/50F during the night, and as I write this at almost 3:30 pm, we’re at 17C/63F, and I’m absolutely loving it!
I took advantage of the temperatures to work on a job that I was avoiding during the hot days. Mowing in the outer yard, with the push mower.
I had a specific purpose for this. When it was cut before, the riding mower was at its highest setting. I’ve lowered the push mower, while also using the bag to collect the clippings. In this area, that would be a mix of old, dried thatch from last year, and fresh growth. I had the wagon handy, as it holds a lot more clippings that the wheelbarrow, to empty the bag into until the load could be hauled off to the garden.
This is as far as I got before filling the wagon for the first time. About two and a quarter passes. It takes about five bags to fill the wagon. In the drier area with the deepest thatch from last year – including the portions we were able to mow and rake up last time – I was emptying the bag ever few feet. I’d say doing this narrow strip took me at least 15 minutes. Then, when I filled the wagon, I started mulching around the transplanted squash right away, which probably took another 15 minutes before I brought the empty wagon back and took this photo.
This is how far I got before stopping for lunch.
By this point, I was able to mulch all the squash mounds, including the ones that were direct sown with summer squash, all the grow bags with peppers and onions, and even low raised beds, around turnips, beets and carrots. I’ve removed the boards that were placed to protect the tomatoes from the wind, which opened up space that needed to be mulched.
That done, I started dumping loads onto the black tarp that has been so handy. We use to to cover areas to start killing off grass and weeds, to hold sifted garden soil until it can be returned to the beds, and now to hold grass clippings for later mulching.
I’m going to continue to focus on using the push mower in this area. Everything else can be done with the riding mower that my brother and his wife left for us to use.
He’s done a lot on the riding mower they took back with them. The drive chain turned out to be stretched, and that’s why it kept falling off. He replaced that – but even the new chain needed to have a link removed for it to work. He replaced the seat, which I didn’t even think needed replacing. The belt for the mowing blade had fallen off at some point. It may need a new battery, and at least one of the tires will need replacing, as the rubber was showing huge cracks. We’re all amazed it held air long enough for my brother to get the mower onto his trailer!
It turned out to need a whole lot more work than expected! He keeps finding more and more things that need to be fixed.
I so appreciate that they left one of their riding mowers behind for us to use while he works on it. It will save us a lot of time, that’s for sure.
For now, though, I’m going to continue to use the push mower and slowly reclaim the super long grass that we never got to cut, or even scythe, last year. This will give me huge amounts of wonderful clippings to use in the garden!
Meanwhile, one of my daughters have been supervising the cats in my office/bedroom. At about 3am, I was awaked by strange kitten noises and discovered Decimus had already moved two of her babies out of the cat cage. I found her peeking at me from one of the cat cave the Cat Lady gave us, so I quickly moved the last two babies over for her. Marlee has been snarling and growling at her most of the night, too. Every now and then, Decimus will leave her sleeping babies and go around the room, getting into things. I’ve learned that this is her looking for a place to poop or pee. For some reason, after the litter boxes where cleaned (with the litter pellets, we just need to empty the bins completely, every few days), she stopped using it – which got very messy! I managed to distract her away from her searching, and she finally ended up using one of the litter boxes. I get the impression eliminating isn’t very comfortable for her, yet. It’s been less than a week since she gave birth, after all.
She’s not the only one moving her babies. After using a load of grass clippings as mulch and starting to head back, I spotted Brussel, crossing the grass in the main garden area. There was something with her! It turned out to be a black and white kitten. It’s not as big as the first litter of kittens we started seeing in the yard, but pretty close! Based on where I’ve been seeing her, I think she had her kittens at the empty farm across the road, and she is now bringing them closer to the house – and kibble! I have no idea how many she has. I’m just assuming she had more than one.
Well, time to head back out and see how much more progress I can get on that super tall, thick grass!
We caught a lovely pair on one of the trail cams this morning!
We’ve got them on the driveway cam, too, running down the road, but the fawn is so small and hard to see against the gravel, it was barely visible.
The girls and I checked on the cats and garden beds this evening. While we were out in the main garden, they called my attention to the sun.
The camera had a hard time showing just how brightly orange the sun is right now. We could look right at it, too, with no discomfort at all. The weird thing it, it doesn’t really seem that smoky out. Certainly not like when we had wildfires all around us during the major drought we had, two years ago. Thankfully, this year we’ve had some decent moisture, though we certainly can still use more rain.
While we were out, we picked a whole bunch of spinach. I’m going to have to remember this variety, because even with the heat we’ve been having, they’re only just now starting to show signs of bolting. So we will probably pull the entire bed of spinach soon. I’ll probably transplant more onions into it after that, since I still have quite a few that need to go into the ground.
I also ended up picking a whole bunch of rhubarb. We don’t use it a lot, but my younger daughter has a recipe for rhubarb cake she got from my sister (who doesn’t even remember giving it to her!) that she wants to make. The girls had gone in by then, and they checked the recipe for how much rhubarb it uses – four cups! – so I went and got another bunch of stalks, just to be sure we had enough.
With how messed up my sleep has been lately, I’m thinking of going to be really early tonight. Hopefully, I’ll get some actual sleep and get an early start tomorrow, and try to make up for the lack of productivity today!
If you look carefully, you’ll see a total of four kittens. Two stay hidden under the spirea.
It looks like the kittens in the cat house are no longer in the cat house. I did see the mama at feeding time. I hope she didn’t move them too far.
My daughter and I headed into town today to run several errands. As we were finishing up, she wondered if the haze we were starting to see what fog or smoke.
It was smoke.
We are now getting air quality advisories for smoke from fires to the east and north of us. Most are on the other side of the lake, but quite a few are way up north, too. As I write this, only two are listed as out of control, and those are nowhere near any towns or villages. Most are listed as under control or being held, with a few as being monitored. Our current fire year isn’t anywhere near as bad at other provinces, but most of those are turning out to be arson. Ours are almost all listed as natural caused.
Right now, I feel like I’ve been totally lazy. Once we got home and put everything away, I tried to catch up on a few things on the computer before changing and heading outside. I was falling asleep in my chair, though, so I lay down to close my eyes for a few minutes.
Almost three hours later, I suddenly woke up, thinking it was morning. !! My brain still feels foggy.
I might still get some work done outside, but we’re at the hottest part of the day now, so not quite yet.
