With the days getting longer, I’ve been pushing to get my morning rounds done earlier in the day. (Not easy for this night owl!)
Ginger was a bit slow for the early start this morning!
He was all curled up in his favourite spot under the heater bulb, looking all groggy at me. :-D
I actually did get a better picture of him, but this one had a tongue blep, and I can’t resist a tongue blep picture! :-D
My husband had already topped up Ginger’s food bowl, but the outside cats had nothing left in their bowls, so they were quite happy for the earlier feeding!
When I came back to get the feed for the birds and deer, Ginger had come out of his warm spot.
He did not look at all happy about that! :-D (The wet under him is from a spill while I changed his water, and not … something else.)
He is developing a permanently angry looking expression on his face. In fact, as he gets older, he looks more and more like Rolando Moon. Big, burly and mean looking. :-D
Well, I imagine I’d be looking ticked off if I woke up one day to find part of my body missing, too! ;-)
I took advantage of the situation, picked him up and sat on the swing bench for some cuddles.
He’s not too impressed with the phone camera!
He settled right in, though, so I stayed and cuddled him until my daughter came over with his morning medication. Thankfully, I was dressed for it, this time. ;-)
Sitting at the window like this, we would sometimes see one of the outside cats go by, and that would get him all perked up. I’m not sure right now it he is wanting to go outside, or wanting the company of other cats. I did bring his sister, Cabbages, in for a visit later on. It didn’t accomplish much. Cabbages wanted to explore and, other than a few passing sniffs, ignored her brother. He wasn’t too happy, though, and hid under my husband’s walker and yelled at her if she got too close. Just a quick little meow that was almost like a barking noise! Which she ignored as she kept on going. :-D
Looking at the long range forecast, we are going to have a really nice day tomorrow, then temperatures are going to plummet as we get what will probably be our last blowout of the winter in a couple of days. Our area is supposed to get between 5-10cm of snow (about 2-4 inches). Right on the day we would normally do our big shopping trip in the city! We are still well stocked for ourselves, but will need to get more cat food and litter, so I am planning to go to the smaller city to pick those up tomorrow.
Which reminds me; PayPal has finally released the donation they’d put a hold on. Thanks to the generosity of those who helped pay for Ginger’s surgery, we don’t have to wait until after the predicted storm to stock up on cat supplies!
Ginger, meanwhile, will be safe and warm in the sun room when the weather turns. He was supposed to go back to the vet after 2 weeks to get the sutures removed, but none of us thought ahead enough to realize that fell on Easter Sunday, so we will look at bringing him in on the Tuesday after.
Well, it was time to throw in the towel on some of our seed starts.
The bunching onions in the small fish tank never recovered from the cats being able to get at them, there were mold issues, and watering problems. At least with those, we still had seeds left and could start more.
The shallots (in the background, out of focus) are another loss.
This is one of the potential problems of using whatever was on hand. We started them in the cardboard egg cartons, but had no way to put a tray of any kind under them, where we could water them from below. Even though we did take them out and give them a thorough watering from below, it wasn’t enough. I regularly sprayed them with water, trying to get the cartons themselves wetter, but again, it wasn’t enough. The shallots are a complete loss, and I have no more seeds to try again. So we’ll be down from four types of onions to three. :-( Unless I find and buy sets later on.
In the future, I would not use the cardboard egg cartons to start seeds in again, unless I were able to keep them in a tray of some kind, and keep the cardboard wet all the time. In spite or watering them every evening, when I pulled them out of their makeshift greenhouses this morning, they were pretty much bone dry. So, they went into the compost heap this morning. :-(
The little tank is now empty, and the tomatoes and bunching onions have been shifted around in the big tank. We are seeing more and more seedlings pop up, though there are still a couple of cups that have no seedlings at all. We’re not after a lot of tomato plants, but I am hoping for more of the Red Baron onion seeds to germinate. At least the bulb onions seem to be doing all right. From what I’ve read, I should be trimming them a few inches, about now.
Yesterday, I picked up some Jiffy pots. I’ve been looking things up about growing luffas, which have a very long growing season to reach that sponge stage I’m after. I’ve decided I will start a few seeds of those in the next few days, and set them up in the little tank. With the screen I found in one of the sheds as a “lid”, we’ve solved the cat problem, so I can raise the level closer to the light, too. From what I’ve been reading/watching, luffa doesn’t like to be transplanted (more so than other gourd types), so using pots which can be buried should help reduce transplant stress. With the size the pots are, I should be able to still double cup them with the red solo cups, which would allow me to water them from below.
So that’s a goal for the next few days, and I will also be preparing to start the other seeds that need to be starting in April.
Meanwhile, as I do my morning rounds, I’ve been studying the different areas we intend to garden in this year.
This strip has never had a garden in it. You can see where the ground starts to get rough on the left, where the old garden started. That rough part is from the crappy plow job that was done before we moved here.
This stretch will have alternating blocks of three varieties of Peaches ‘n Cream corn and two varieties of sunflowers.
In years where we had more snow, where I’m standing to take this picture had a large puddle of water from melted snow. This year, there is only that whitish patch you can see on the left foreground. That’s ice from the small amount of water accumulated this spring. This is something to keep in mind when we are planting food trees here, as we don’t want saplings being drowned out in the spring. So part of our goal when growing here is leveling things out a bit more.
The further out we go, however, the drier it gets. By the time we reach the corner, past the low hanging spruce branches I will have to prune away, it’s very dry. Weeds and grass barely grow there. Which means that, when we have corn growing there, we are going to have to find ways to keep them well watered. This entire area is going to be a challenge to water, simply because it’s so far from the house.
This time of the morning is the only time this area is in shade. It gets full sun for most of the day, and also gets incredibly hot. To the left of where the corn and sunflowers will be planted is where we will be having beds of melons and gourds. They’ll get the heat they need (especially if we have summer like last year!). We just have to make sure they get the water they’ll need. The winter squash will also be more on this side, while the summer squash will be planted closer to the house, where they will be closer for continual harvesting over the summer.
We’re also going to have to work on keeping the deer out. There are a number of options we can try. If we make use of several of them together, it should work out.
The fence line the trees on the right are hiding is pretty much toast. New posts had been put in along the spruce grove, which I’m guessing my late brother did, but he never got to finish the job. The remaining stretch of fence has rotting fence posts, some of which are held up by nothing but the barbed wire. My late brother had a soil auger attachment for the Bobcat, and we still have the post pounder he built, but the Bobcat and its accessories are with our vandal now, and the post pounder had been sitting, exposed to the elements and covered in junk, for so many years, there’s lichen growing on the belts. So if we’re going to be putting in new fence posts, we’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way. I’ve found a couple of post hole diggers that we can try out. One of them is a very different design, and I’m curious as to how it would be used.
Meanwhile, that entire strip along the West fence line needs to be cleaned up. I might have to take the remains of the fence out entirely. The North fence line, which runs behind the lilac hedge, is in even worse shape, but at least the lilacs are there to provide some privacy and a bit of security. Once the strip along the West fence line is cleared out, it’ll be pretty open.
It would be nice to not need a fence there at all.
Since these fences mark the property lines at the roads, these are areas where we can consider putting in something very permanent for fencing. Something along the lines of a hedgerow, perhaps, or a “palisade” type of wall that would give both privacy, and keep the deer out! The corner at the far end is one of the places they regularly jump the fence (well… what’s left of the fence…). The road on the North side is very busy (as such things are in this area), and in the summer, a LOT of dust gets kicked up. On a windless day, it just hangs in the air like a fog, slowly drifting across the property, for a surprisingly long time. The lilac hedge helps keep that out of the garden area quite a bit, so that’s another thing to keep in mind as we work on the area. Dust control!
When it comes to gardening in this area, it’s all temporary. If things go well, it’ll just be for one year, and then next year, we’ll be able to start planting food trees here, while permanent garden beds get placed to the south of the house. The area we intend for permanent beds is very rough, though. It might be easiest to clear it as much as we can, then get someone in to plow and smooth it out as much as possible. We’ll be building accessible raised beds there, so it’s the leveling that’s more important to our needs. It would be good if we could get the old farm equipment moved, and the collapsing building dismantled and cleared away, but that might be just too much for this year!
We’ve got a lot of work to get done! Last year, with first the heavy rains, then the excessive heat, we didn’t get anywhere near as much done as I wanted. Hopefully, this summer will be not be as extreme.
So much of what we want to do depends on the weather!
He’s still doing very well. Last night, my husband spent some time in the sun room to keep him company. I think it’s the first time he’s seen my husband! He did allow for some scritches, but did not otherwise come close. Plus, he really likes his spot under the heater bulb.
This morning, he was quite active, and my daughters had to keep him away from the door when I had to head out to feed the outside critters. He wanted outside again!
We also turned the new warming mat on, with an hour on the timer. It’s been positioned so he can sit on it while eating, so even after it turns itself off, he has a nice, soft butt warmer. ;-)
Through much of the winter, there was a lot of kibble left in the bowls outside when I came out to refill them in the morning. So much so that, some days, I didn’t add any more at all.
No longer! For the past few days, I’ve been finding the containers completely empty. Not a crumb left! When I come out the door in the morning, the cats come running from all over, eager for food. Even the heated water bowl was completely dry this morning!
Judging from the smell I’ve noticed some mornings, I suspect we have some stripy “kitties” showing up at night, having a snack. Since adding that board across the front of the kibble house to keep the containers from being knocked out, they have a harder time getting at the kibble, but they still manage. I’ve stopped adding kibble to the bowl just inside the entry into the cat house, until we have a chance to open it up and tidy things. The container in there is upside down, with cat mats bunched up on top. This morning, I found one of those mats outside the entry. I think it got pulled out while critters were digging around in the entry, trying to find every last bit of kibble that was spilled onto the floor!
The outside cats are seeming more skittish than usual. Not even Butterscotch would come near me, and when I get too close to the kibble house, they’d all bolt. Only Rolando Moon would let me touch her this morning, and that was only because she thought I was bringing out food! Creamsicle Jr. (in the above photo) has become more skittish for some time. Which I’m sad about, because we had been able to at least touch and pet him, once in a rare while, over the summer.
The mostly white cat in the above photo has always been skittish, though. Nothing has changed, there!
Rosencrantz looked like she was stalking her baby! :-D
It was good to see as many of the outside cats as I did, but there are some missing faces still, and I am starting to think they won’t be coming around anymore. :-(
That’s just how it goes on the farm, and we’ve had many cats simply stop coming round in the years we’ve been here – Beep Beep, Butterscotch and Rolando Moon are the only ones left among those that were here when we moved in, and they were all among the cats my late father took care of. The males, in particular, disappear faster as they range further out. I can hope that they’ve settled in on another farm somewhere, but … well. That’s not very likely. At least the females tend to stay where they know there are safe places to have kittens and there’s a reliable source of food. They let the boys all come to the yard to see them, rather than going further afield themselves. ;-)
Another reason to turn Ginger snap into an indoor cat!
Well, today – after three delays due to pandemic lock downs – I finally went to court for our restraining order application against our vandal.
Only to find it was delayed for a fourth time.
The frustrating part is that I called to confirm, just a couple of days ago. I was even put on hold while the person talked to someone else to be sure. Then she gave me the number for the Crown office, where I could get other questions I had answered, and I spoke to someone there, just yesterday. Though the prosecutor I spoke to had no connection to my specific application, as far as he knew, this courthouse was open.
Worse, my brother booked a day off work to be there for me.
We both came very early (more on why, later) but couldn’t figure out which court room was going to be used. One of them turned out to have a trial in session in it, but I went to the court office nearby and asked.
One of the people there recognized me and remembered my call from a couple of days ago. As far as she knew, I had been told of the date shift. Everything had been delayed again, until April 23rd. Near that date, I’m going to have to call again to find out if it’s been shifted again, or if I have a new court date. While I was there, the person at the counter looked up the file, and it did say today’s date. However, only those files that have legal representatives are going ahead today, virtually, through the big city. Mine is a private prosecution, so even if our vandal lawyered up, it still would have been shifted.
I had actually gotten through to the Crown office, yesterday, so I knew what to expect. There were three possible outcomes, assuming our vandal showed up. The judge would first ask if both parties agreed to the application. In his experience, the person the order is being applied against never accepts that option. Next, we would be offered mediation. For this, we would sit down with a third party, who would try to work out an arrangement between us. I don’t know if our vandal would agree to that, but even if he did, I don’t know that I would. After we pressed charges when he broke our gate, he had to go through some sort of program where he was seeing a psychiatrist (or a psychologist? I don’t know. We were never informed) regularly. Once the program was complete, the charges were stayed. The thing is, even while he was going through the program, he was still making abusive calls to my mother, and actually using it against her. He still hasn’t taking any sort of responsibility for his actions. If that didn’t work, how would mediation be any better? Anyhow. If mediation was not agreed upon, it would then go to a hearing, another court date would be booked, and for that we would be able to file additional evidence, affidavits, bring witnesses, etc.
None of this can happen, though, because everything got shifted again.
This is getting beyond ridiculous. We have been fortunate, in that our vandal has (so far) only engaged in property damage, creeping around the driveway, watching us from the road, and verbal abuse. However, considering the sudden bunch of calls he left on my mother’s answering machine not long ago, he is not all there. For all we know, he might go on a drinking binge after his wife leaves for work, have another “mental break” (as his wife described it), grab one of his many guns and come after us. We may have a crossbow now (and yes, it’s assembled, but the scope isn’t sighted yet), but that isn’t much defense against a gun.
How many other people in similar situations – or worse – are there, whose applications are being repeatedly delayed like ours? In our province alone, likely dozens. And for what? Schrodinger’s virus, where we hadn’t even been part of the pandemic until our provincial government created the very environment that would create an epidemic? Even at the highest rates, our uptick of excess deaths at the end of last year happened after the strictest lock downs, which cannot possibly stop a virus, were enforced, and includes people who died because of the restrictions – and still didn’t reach exceptionally high rates. We’ve had much higher spikes in excess deaths just within the last five years. The increases in suicides and other deaths of despair, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and child abuse is a consequence that is being acknowledged in at least some places. People have been trying to warn for months about the increases in deaths due to lack of timely medical care that are happening now, and which we’re going to be hit with for years, because of the restrictions. Situations like ours isn’t even on anyone’s radar, from what I’ve seen.
Okay. Rant over.
The session was supposed to start at 10am. The smaller city it was to be held in is about 45 minutes away, on the highway. Last night, we started to get a combination of snow, sleet and rain. Not heavy, but enough to make the roads more dangerous. Normally, I would have left and hour + early and taken a particular route, but this morning, I left 2 hours early and took a route that was longer (in time, not distance), but less isolated. I am glad I did, because it took me more than an hour to get there. I was happy to see the plow trucks out, clearing the slush away. It seems the conditions had actually improved by the time I was on the road. I saw one car (empty) far into a large ditch. What was more telling was the tire tracks I could see in the slush on the shoulders. Something happened in that area that had people swerving all over and, in some areas, I could tell people had reversed and pulled over.
When I got to the building the courts and court office is in, it was mostly empty. Not seeing security guards at the door should have been my first warning, but I was so early, I thought they might not have set up yet. After a quick run to the washroom, I came out to find a single person walking down the hall towards the court rooms, and that was it.
That person turned out to be my brother. I didn’t recognize him, because he was masked. *sigh* He recognized me, though. Even with the light from windows behind me, I was the only person with a visible face (I had my Mingle Mask). That and, let’s face it, I have a rather distinctive short, rotund silhouette. ;-)
We were trying to figure out which court room was going to be used when I saw a lawyer looking dude come around, so I asked if he knew which room was being used for general session. He only knew of a trial that was happening in one room, already started, and suggested we try the court office. Only one person was allowed in at a time, so my brother waited in the lobby while I went in, and that’s when I found out about the shift.
So my brother and I headed out – he happened to park right next to my van – and talked along the way, but there’s nowhere to even sit over a hot non-denominational beverage (I don’t drink coffee… LOL) and talk. He booked a day off work, drove all the way over to the courthouse – about the same distance as my drive – and it turned out to be for nothing. Watching my gas gauge on the way home, I figure it cost us about $30 in gas for this trip. Each.
At least I was able to take advantage of it and make a quick Walmart run. My brother just headed home.
Once I was safety parked, I made a point of calling my mother to update her on what happened. Or, should I say, what didn’t happen. She was frustrated, too. She is really worried about our safety.
But what can we do? Apparently, nothing at all.
I’m not going to waste my time or energy worrying about it, and will just do what we can for now.
So I promptly let it go and did my shopping.
Walmart is getting their Easter inventory in. There were so many eggs, they were on pallets in the aisles, rather than in the fridges! (For those outside of North America, our eggs get washed before they get packed in cartons, which removes their coating, so we have to keep our eggs in the fridge to keep them from spoiling). I don’t think it was much of a concern, though, considering how fast people were already grabbing eggs from the pallets. I’d actually forgotten about Easter preparations. It’s still too early for that, isn’t it??
They did get more canning supplies in, but I didn’t see more 750ml jars. I didn’t see a lot of snap lids or rings, either. Thankfully, I don’t need more rings or lids right now. I got another case of 500ml jars. We will continue to stock up on the jars throughout the summer, little by little. They sell out fast, but I don’t think there is currently any shortage of canning jars at the moment. I imagine there will be, later in the year. A lot of people will be gardening for the first time this year.
Speaking of which…
I decided to pick up some Jiffy pots. I’ll talk about why in another post, but as I was going through the till, the cashier asked me about them. She wondered if you had to somehow use the Jiffy pellets in them, and I told her that she could use whatever soil mix she wanted, and that they were designed to be buried with the transplants. It turned out that she was going to try growing a garden this year, but she is in an apartment and would be growing indoors. I told her that, if she were growing in containers, she could still bury the pot with the transplants in her containers.
I hope her indoor gardening attempts work out well for her. :-)
I hope the same for all the people who are going to try growing their own food for the first time this year!
For us, if nothing else, focusing on the gardening and taking care of this place helps relieve the frustration of dealing with our vandal. Very good for mental health! :-)
After a very frustrating morning (which I will write about later) I was cheered by the wonderful and kind gift for Ginger that arrived in the mail today, from a very awesome friend.
It was a Ginger warmer!
It’s “Great for you provides safe warming comfort zone!”
Love it!
And it’s cover is soooo soft!
Of course, we had to bring it to Ginger, right away!
He was in what seems to be his favorite spot, draped over a bar under the heater bulb.
He had zero interest in moving out of that spot! Not even for scritches. He just lolled about, luxuriating over that bar under the blanket. It’s part of the greenhouse frame we’re using to hold the ceramic heat bulb in place.
I wonder if the bar provides some sort of relief? I recall one of the things my husband was put on during physiotherapy was a long padded bar he was supposed to keep lined up with his spine while lying on it. It did help. Considering how often we find him (meaning Ginger, not my husband) draped over it like this, I suspect it does provide some sort of comfort.
The new heat pad was set to its second lowest heat setting, for 90 minutes. We’ll keep an eye through the bathroom window to see how he responds to it. The good thing is, since the cat’s house outside is not plugged in through the sun room, we have a spare plug, and can use both this and the bulb heater at the same time.
A thought occurred to me as I was looking at his wound and, in particular, at the discoloration. It might not be a discoloration at all. His fur is starting to grow back. It’s more likely a stripe of darker orange fur!
He’s such a sweet boy. I’m so thankful that he’s doing so well.
We’re still on the chilly side these days, and will continue to be for a while longer. As I write these, we are just below freezing, and our predicted highs aren’t going to be much warmer. It’s like that mild weather we had, and my being able to do some clean up in the spruce grove, was just a tease!
I think the cats are still appreciating the kibble house, and not having to be on the frozen ground to eat. Their water is freezing solid overnight again (except for the heated water bowl, of course), and they’re enjoying the warm water they’re still getting every morning.
I look forward to when we can take that tarp off the kibble house and give it a good paint job! It’s still too cold for paint.
At least the snow is mostly gone, so I can extend my rounds, checking the fence lines, etc. Which is where I found this poor little pussy willow, desperately trying to develop its catkins! :-D At least since we cleared this fence line, it is finally getting morning sun and warmth.
One of the things we will need to do today is go into town and retrieve my mother’s car. A bit late to help my mother, though! Yesterday, shortly after noon, I got a call from my mother. When I asked how she was doing, she told me she was “dressed”. Meaning, she was dressed up and all ready to head out. !!
We had been talking about me helping her with errands when I got her car back, and I was suggesting Wednesday or Thursday, hoping it would be done by then. Somehow, my mother thought it had been settled for Wednesday! So she was all ready to go for her errands, and for me to show up at the usual time. Of course, I didn’t show up because I didn’t know this! :-D I told her I didn’t have her car, but she had quite a few errands to run, and didn’t want to delay them. So I headed out right away and, just in case, brought our little step stool for her to use to get in and out of the van. She has one just like it, but I wasn’t sure if she’d grab it or not. I’m glad I did, because she had forgotten hers. She realized this while waiting for me, outside the door where I usually meet her, sitting in her walker. She was going to give me her keys so I could run in and get hers, but it wasn’t necessary. It turns out she doesn’t need it so much to get out of the van, but getting in is much harder for her.
One of the stops she needed to make was at the Senior’s centre which, unfortunately, has stairs, so she has to leave her walker outside and hobble in. :-( I helped her with the door and saw there was quite a few people inside, so I told her I’d wait for her outside. One of the social workers that I’ve been talking to about the horrible caretakers in my mother’s building came out to chat. She asked how my mother was doing, since my mother has a habit of saying she’s having troubles when she’s actually doing pretty well, but saying she’s doing well when she’s having troubles. Which isn’t all that unusual, I’ve found! ;-) One of the things I mentioned was that my mother was getting some serious cabin fever.
Which is when I found out something interesting. Not a good interesting, either.
When our province locked down even harder (which, as I predicted a year ago, actually caused an increase in deaths and illnesses; the first uptick of excess deaths our province had was during the annual winter increase, since the pandemic bypassed our province entirely until then, and no one in either of our municipalities has ever tested positive), buildings such as my mother’s locked their doors and only “authorized” personnel were allowed in, while residents were told to stay in their own apartments as much as possible, though they were “graciously” allowed to not wear masks within their own homes. :-/ “Authorized” personnel included the social workers, and people making deliveries. Because of the caretakers, my mother would sneak me or my siblings in through a side door, as we brought her groceries in. Yes, technically we were allowed in the building to do this, but the caretakers look for any excuse to harass people. Especially my mother, who is one of the few people to stand up to them.
Well, it turns out that my mother’s building is the only one that’s still locked up. All the other buildings run by the province are open. The social worker speculated on just who was responsible for keeping the residents locked up, and I half-joked that it made it easier to “control the inmates”. Unfortunately, the joke was too close to reality. She told me that one of my mother’s neighbours is considering putting a sign on her door to turn her apartment number to “Cell ##”, because she feels like she is in a prison. To be honest, in a real prison, they’d have more freedoms than the people living in my mother’s building, it seems. The frustrating thing is, there’s nothing we can do about it. The people living there are too afraid of the caretakers to complain, and since it’s a government run building, instead of a privately run building, getting abusive employees fired is pretty much impossible. The social workers have been trying to get the problem addressed for years – long before my mother has lived there – and had their own jobs threatened, instead.
It’s so frustrating. I was hoping my mother was serious about escaping to another building in town – one where meals are included, so she wouldn’t even need to do grocery shopping – but she chose this building because her church is right across the street. She wouldn’t be able to walk to church from the other building. That and she really doesn’t want to go through the hassle of moving again, even though this time I’d be available to help with our van. Truthfully, with the exception of the caretakers, this place is pretty ideal for her. She shouldn’t have to move, just to get away from crappy employees.
What a mess.
After my mother finished at the senior’s centres, we did the rest of my mother’s errands, finishing with some grocery shopping. After everything was brought in and put away, I was even able to stay for tea. Before I left, I gave my mother a big hug. She almost started crying. :-(
Just before I got home, I heard my phone going off, so I checked my messages before unlocking the gate. It was from the garage, letting me know my mother’s car was ready! It was too close to their closing time, though. I suppose I could have grabbed my daughter and left immediately, but since I had just finished helping my mother with her errands, there was no longer any rush.
Meanwhile…
Today, I need to focus and prepare for tomorrow. We finally have our court date for the restraining order against our vandal. I really don’t know what to expect. I think the most likely thing to happen is that they will run through the docket as quick as they can, and it’ll be rescheduled for a hearing at a later date. Of course, what I hope will happen is that the restraining order will be granted. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, but it does give the police more to work with and, more importantly, our vandal will have his guns removed, and he’ll have to stop drinking. The order is for a year, and then I would have to re-apply, if I felt it was warranted, but I would hope that a year of being dry, and having to prove it regularly, will make a difference in his mental state. It’s a faint hope, but it’s there, nonetheless. There’s still his vexatious litigation against me to deal with, but that court date is in July. If he were at all sensible, he would drop that, as he has no case. It’s basically just his way of getting back at me for applying for the restraining order after he tried to break the gate again.
What a mess.
As crazy at it is, I have no regrets for moving out here. The positives far outweigh the negatives, and it’s still better than what we left behind.
Still, it would be nice if all we needed to do was take care of this place for my family, which is why we moved out here to begin with!
After we gave him his morning medications, my daughter held him while I checked the incisions. While giving him his medications last night, one of my daughters noticed a discoloration, but he would not let her take a closer look. He was more cooperative, this morning. It looks like there may have been some fluid that leaked and got smeared on his skin. I’m only guessing, because there was no sign of swelling or leaking in the wounds at all. Just the stain on his skin.
Then my daughter sat and cuddled him, so he wouldn’t make a dash for the door while I went in and out with food for the cats, birds and deer outside.
Ginger is still not happy with getting his medications. He, of course, resists opening his mouth and tries to spit out the pills. When using the syringe to give him the liquid medication, he tries to chew on it. It’s a good thing they gave us two, because he bit a hole in the first one! Still, he’s actually really good about taking them, even if he doesn’t like it.
Ginger baby is being a good boy, and handling things very well.
Little bitty sprooooots actually showed up a couple of days ago, but they were so tiny, I didn’t bother trying to take a picture through the glass of the tank.
So far, only the Spoon tomatoes have started to show, not the Mosaic mix, though some of the bunching onions emerged even earlier.
I unpacked the second light for the tank – this was the one that originally came with the tank kit – and set it over the red solo cups. It’s sitting partly on the wood of the mesh frames, to better light up the inside of the cups. That wood is way too wide, really, but it’s what I had available.
Sometimes, I will also put another light fixture on the tank covers, too. While it does have a full spectrum bulb in it, it’s more because it’s an incandescent bulb, which provides a bit of heat. The onions don’t need it as much, but from everything I’ve been reading, tomato seedlings need more warmth.
I look forward to when things warm up and we can start moving seedlings to the sun room (after Ginger has completed his convalescence in there!). By then, the tomatoes and, later, squash seedlings will get all the heat they need in there!
I’m really glad we were able to plug power back into the cat’s house, when we couldn’t do it through the sun room any more. Temperatures have dropped, and while we are reaching above freezing during the day, it’s getting quite a bit colder overnight.
Since it’s too cold to continue with the clean up, when I was finishing my morning rounds, I decided to move the poles closer to the house and the garden area, so they will be handy when it’s time to start building the trellises and supports.
This gave me the opportunity to somewhat sort them by size. While I deliberately chose our winter squash to be smaller, shorter season, varieties, they will still need very sturdy supports, as will the gourds. While all of these will be temporary, they still need to be strong enough to hold a fair bit of way, and sturdy enough to not blow over in high winds.
We haven’t even decided on what form these supports will take, yet! But at least we’ll have ample materials, and can figure things out as we go.
Yesterday evening, I decided to try and introduce one of the inside cats to Ginger. I chose our mama cat, who moved out here with us, as she has been so incredibly maternal with all the new additions.
Well… that didn’t quite work out. She’s never been in the sun room before. At least not for more than a couple of moments, a year or two ago. So she was pretty nervous and more interested in exploring the room.
Ginger, however, was missing.
I couldn’t find him anywhere!
Eventually, I heard a little mew and he emerged from behind a storage bin.
Without his surgical shirt.
I’m not happy that he squeezed back there. We very deliberately put stuff in front of the window, because the inner pane had cracked last winter. This winter, it cracked even more, and pieces of glass have started to fall off. We can’t do anything about it until things are warm and dry enough that we can empty the sun room.
(Also, I now think that the large windows in the barn are more of what was used to build the sun room.)
I suspect he squeezed into there in his efforts to get the surgical shirt off. We still haven’t found it, so it’s likely somewhere in the corner, behind all the stuff we shoved in to keep cats out of there. :-/
As for the new cat in the room, Ginger was utterly indifferent to her.
When I picked him up, he at first tried to burrow his face into my elbow, but then realized I wasn’t going to try and give him any medication, so he settled right in and started purring. Loudly!
I sat with him in my arms like this for way too long! My husband even came by to rescue the mama cat, who wanted back into the house, and bring me my phone. It was 10C/50F in the sun room, which is fine for a bit, but gets pretty chilly after a while! When I finally had to go back in, I put him under the heat bulb, and he settled right back down again. :-)
I’m glad we had that extra heat bulb. This morning, it was -8C/18F outside, with a wind chill of -18C/0F. It was much warmer in the sun room, of course, but that heat bulb over his little nest is making a big difference.
He was quite happy to see me in the morning – though not so happy when my daughter and I gave him his medications! Once we were done, though, he settled into her arms, and she was the one stuck on the bench, being cuddled, this time! :-D
Ginger was one of the friendlier of the outside cats. He let us pet him more often than his brother, Nutmeg, who would let us pet him one in a while. (His brother, Creamsicle Jr. won’t come near us.) We could sometimes pick up Ginger, but that was pretty rare, and he wouldn’t stay up for long. So for him to actively burrow into our arms for cuddles is a HUGE difference from before his injury!
I think he will adapt to the indoor life pretty well.
Adapting to all the other cats… that might take a bit more time!
The Re-Farmer 