I’m happy to say, that a day of rest seems to be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, I felt so good, and it looked so beautiful outside, I decided to see if there was something I could get started on today.
Because I’m an idiot like that.
The beautiful looking day lied! :-D It was still cold and windy out there! Those lilacs are looking gorgeous, though.
When I went to check the forecast, though, I found a weather alert. We’re supposed to get frost tonight.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get those transplants done!
The girls and I headed out to make sure everything was covered.
The squash bed was a challenge. I didn’t have very many of the plastic containers I was keeping to use as cloches for exactly this purpose. We did, however, still have the five gallon size water bottles from when I did a complete water change of the fish tank (which, I am happy to say, shows no signs of turning cloudy or that mass of algae growing back; it was definitely our well water that was the problem!). I cut a bunch of them in half, and we got all the squashes covered!
I don’t know that the bricks balancing on the necks of bottles will do much good, but it’s worth a try, to make sure the cloches don’t get blown away.
The girls covered the new garden bed with plastic, as well.
The plastic row covers are sandwiched between pairs of boards, so the sprouts won’t get flattened too much.
We didn’t bother doing anything with the potato beds, since the straw mulch will insulate them just fine.
Based on the long range forecast, this should be the last frost of the year. We’re going to start getting hot again, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here are some more smiles for you! :-)
The girls went to visit with the kittens for a bit, but only Big Rig stayed still long enough for a decent photo. :-D
As David does so well with the kittens, the girls let him come down, too.
For those who are not yet familiar with the Spoon Theory, visit this link.
Today has been turning out to be a very non-productive day. Right from the start.
The first issue was waking up in pain. Particularly in my hands. Every joint in my fingers, stiff and sore. I know osteoarthritis is setting in (inevitable, given some of the jobs I’ve had in the past), but most of the time, they’re fine. Some days, however… well… let’s just say they’re “not fine.”
I woke up fairly early and started getting ready to do my usual routing, which now starts with bringing fresh water for the kitties. My husband was using the kitchen, so I sat down on the couch for a bit to let him finish.
I basically passed out for nearly 4 hours.
It felt more like a few minutes.
My entire body is feeling achy and sluggish, I’m in a snarly mood, and I’m in a brain fog.
Definitely a reminder that I am not really all that able bodied. I didn’t feel like I’d been overdoing it over the past few days, yet I clearly have, and my body is making sure I know it.
Well, at least it’s a good day to go into recovery mode. It’s too wet to finish mowing, and too chilly to finish transplanting. Manual labour outside is not going to be much of a thing, today.
And so, I will share some smiles with you, instead! :-)
I’ve been posting so many photos of our adopted cats and kittens, I rarely get photos of the two that moved out here with us. Last night, DahBoy got to entertain us!
One of my daughters was in my doorway when DahBoy demanded up.
He did not want up on her, though. She was just a way to get to his real goal.
No, not the top of the door, either!
He wants the top of the linen closet. He knows there’s space up there, and he wants in!
Will a human assist him? No? So how is he to get down, now?
Oh, look! A handy human.
I got that last shot a split second before he leapt onto my shoulder, then vaulted the rest of his way to the ground. :-D
This morning, while visiting the kittens, I had to very carefully step my way around kittens that were determined to climb my legs. They didn’t stop until I gave them some wet cat food.
Even during the feeding frenzy, Saffron and Turmeric were more interested in me than the food! They’re not as into the solid food thing, yet. Especially Saffron, who would much rather climb a table leg. LOL
Once outside, I had another cat I had to dance around. Potato Beetle was quite determined to walk in front of my moving feet and flop onto the ground. That is, when he wasn’t doing this…
What a goof!
At least they’re entertaining. ;-)
Ugh. It feels like such a wasted day, today, and it’s only mid afternoon!
Hopefully, a day of recovery means I can get things done tomorrow. I really need to get those transplants in.
I spotted a mystery while checking the trail cams today!
Watch closely, behind the deer.
We have a mystery critter!
It’s too big to be a squirrel, and squirrels are not out at night, anyhow. It seems too small to be a raccoon or a skunk. Those are large enough that they would be identifiable, even with the infrared flash.
About the only thing we are pretty sure of is, it’s likely a rodent of some kind. :-D
Since I neglected to get any kitten pictures to share yesterday, I’m making up for it today!
Here are some furry smiles for you to enjoy. :-)
In the end, I needed to be rescued by my daughter, who was able to de-kitten me, so I could leave!
Kitten therapy was exactly what I needed. :-)
We got our monthly shop in the city done. After last month, I was quite dreading it. We didn’t know what restrictions were still in place, or how things would be, and I certainly didn’t want to put up with snarly customers again, so we ended up skipping Costco entirely.
It does mean we couldn’t get some of the stuff we normally do, nor as much of some things. We did, however, manage to get pretty much everything on my list. Except printer ink. There wasn’t any of the type I needed, in stock. :-/ At this point, I think I’m just going to order it online. I need it to make posters of the kittens to try and adopt them.
Only one of my daughters came along, since as far as I know, Costco is still allowing only 2 people per membership, and when we left that was still part of the plan. We were well on the way to the city when I suggested to skip it and try going to Superstore, instead.
After hitting a drive through, then having breakfast sitting in the van in a parking lot, we started at the Walmart. We don’t buy anything that needs to be kept cold or frozen there, so our purchases and stay in the van without concern.
Much to our surprise and appreciation, there was no line up outside at all. There was a very short one when we left, but that was it.
We got most of the cat supplies there; we’d have had to use two carts, if we’d got all that we needed. This time, we also picked up a case of the type of cat food Beep Beep and the kittens like so much.
We had no issues finding paper products, and if we’d needed any, we could have picked up all the disinfectant cleaners we wanted. :-D I was even able to pick up some much needed work clothes.
Then I got real wild and crazy, and picked up a new garden hose, and long handled, ratchet pruning sheers. I’m so excited to use the sheers! They are going to go a long way in saving my back!
It’s the little things that make me happy. :-D
Next on the agenda was Superstore. We don’t normally stock up there, and I was rather surprised by how expensive some things have become. Particularly beef. I’ve been spoiled by Costco prices, that’s for sure.
It was very confusing when we checked out, though. After scanning everything, the cashier indicated towards the other belt, telling me to “take that”. There was a bunch of stuff, most of it packaging material, but there was also something in a long, blue fabric case. She told me I could take it, but she had to scan it first. It was free.
The whole thing was so out of context, it took me a while to figure out what she was telling me. It turned out we’d spent enough money to earn a freebie. I couldn’t even tell what it was! My daughter ended up handing the tag end over to the cashier, and could see on the label that it was a folding camp chair.
I’ve never spent that much money at a Superstore before, and had completely forgotten they had giveaways for larger purchases. :-D It turned out to be a rather nice chair, too. It will certainly be put to good use!
Once we finished at the Superstore, we went to an international grocery we really like, for the last few things, then got some Dim Sum for the drive home. That has become a much-looked-forward-to treat, if we can swing it!
While we were pretty exhausted by the end of everything, it was a much better trip than last time. Things are slowly getting back to normal. Some people are still wearing masks. Some were even wearing them properly. Not very many, but some. ;-)
The check out lines at the Walmart and Superstore are still organized with the 2 meter circles on the floors, in one long line, with a staff member telling people which tills were open. I rather hope this stays, because that is working out to be very efficient. I’ve seen some stores that, years ago, had checkouts redesigned specifically to work with one line up for all cash desk. No staff needed to run back and forth to see which tills would open next. It does make things go much more quickly! The smaller grocery store doesn’t really have a layout that would allow for it, but things still went smoothly there, too.
Normally, we would have gone to this particular Walmart, then driven a fair distant to the Costco, then back to the same area the Walmart we like is in, to go to the international grocery store. While there are other branches of these stores closer to the Costco, we find they’re not as good, to the point it’s worth the extra driving. I have to admit, though, it made for a less stressful and tiring day, with all the places we needed to go being all along one major thoroughfare. It probably took about 45 minutes of driving time out of the equation, too.
We might try Costco again, next month, though. We shall see.
For now, we are pretty much stocked up for the month again, and I am glad to have the trip over and done with!
I didn’t get a single kitten picture today, to share with you! I never had the chance.
I did visit the kittens, of course. One of the first things I do in the morning is head down there with fresh water for them. When I opened the basement door, Beep Beep was sitting in the window ledge above the stairs, waiting for her moment. As soon as the door opened, she launcher herself into the air and through the door!
In my hapless effort to block her, the door got left open a split second too long.
As Beep Beep raced into the dining room, five cats exploded into the basement.
The kittens, meanwhile, had come running to the stairs, as they usually do.
Fenrir has been the most dedicated at trying to get into the basement, but she does not like the kittens. As soon as she saw them, she bolted back up the stairs, then crouched in the entry, staring at the door, like a hairy gargoyle.
Keith was quite taken aback by the horde of kittens.
Keith is also a bundle of nerves and anxiety.
Next thing I know, Keith is hissing and spitting at a kitten, in total fear. The kitten – Nicco – was busily making himself look big, hissing, spitting and advancing on Keith.
Who ran away and hid under a table.
Two Face was running around, trying to snag a kitten to groom. Every now and then, one would come too close, and she would grab it, do a barrel roll as she wrestled it to the ground, before aggressively mothering it. It would take a few moments before a disheveled kitten would squirm it’s way out, and she would do it again to another one.
Cheddar doesn’t seem to know what to think of them. He kept going from kitten to kitten, sniffing and staring. Once again, it was Nicco who made himself look big, staring him down. Until Cheddar casually reached out with a paw and smacked Nicco vaguely around his head.
David, meanwhile, is totally chill with the kittens. He kept going around, sniffing and grooming and snuzzling, kitten after kitten.
Beep Beep, meanwhile, came down, then went back up, then came down and beep beep beeped at me with her distinctive meow that gave her her name.
Then her daughter, Two Face, started beeping, too.
She has a much higher voice than her mother.
I tried to cuddle Beep Beep, and she was reveling in the attention, but would soon run off upstairs again.
Eventually, I had to grab a broom to try and persuade Keith to come out from under the table. Then I tried to sweep the cats towards the stairs. I was finally able to grab them, one at a time, and toss them into the entry way, closing the door each time, so none would come back down.
Beep Beep ended up upstairs again, and I found myself alone with 5 kittens attacking my feet and trying to climb my legs.
I finally got their water changed, then took advantage of the situation and gave them a little packet of wet cat food. That distracted them enough that I could escape and find Beep Beep. As I suspected, she was looking around the food bowls upstairs. She was looking for wet cat food.
So I snagged her and managed to get her downstairs, where the treat was waiting for her.
By the time it was done, the whole thing left me feeling like I’d been spun in circles! :-D
So…
No pictures of kittens this time.
*sadness*
Today did turn out to be a nicely productive day. I made a trip into town to check out a place I’d seen ads for, saying they did lawnmower maintenance. If I could find a place I could take the mowers to, instead of having to go three quarters of the way to the city, to the place my brother bought our riding mower, that would be great. I never expected having trouble finding a small engine shop locally! There are probably quite a few, but no one that advertises. This place is connected to one of the hardware stores, and carries a lot of the big stuff, and even has a chipper that can be rented. For the amount of wood we need to get chipped, we’re going to go ahead and hire the company that did our trees for us, instead. This place also carries the garden soil, manure and peat that the hardware store itself just doesn’t have the room for.
Walking into the place is like heaven. Everywhere I turned, there were riding mowers, push mowers, weed wackers, all sorts of tools and…
Was that a chain saw display in the back?
Why yes! Yes it was!
I had had zero luck in finding a new chain for the electric chainsaw that we had checked out, last year. We never got to use it, nor the gas powered one, at all last year.
The first thing I asked about, was the lawn mower maintenance. When I told him I wanted to get some work done on our riding mower, his first question was, is it still working? I explained that yes, it’s running fine, but I just want to get some basic maintenance done and the blades sharpened. He told me that I could just drop it off – no appointment needed – but they are really busy with lawnmower maintenance right now. He said that, since it’s still running (not in need of any repairs), to just keep on using it and give them about 2 weeks before I drop it off.
I’ll just leave it for next month.
I then asked him about chain saw chains. He said he would need to see the chain saw to know if they carried the right chain, but they do have sharpening services, too. So I will bring it over one of these days for him to take a look at, and he’ll be able to determine if I just need to get it sharpened, or if I need a new chain.
I then bought a bale of peat and some bag of soil mix. He came out with me to help load it into the van, which was kind of funny, since the lift gate is still broken, and I keep a pole in the back to prop it open. I joked about it being something else I need to get fixed, as he deftly maneuvered around the pole to load the bags into the van.
That done, I decided a stop at the garage would be a good idea.
I asked about my mom’s car. He told me he was going into the city tomorrow, and going to a wreckers. Among the things he’s looking for is the part for my mother’s car. He’d hoped to head out this afternoon, but had too many cars to work on, already. I then asked him if he serviced AC systems. Our air conditioning was working last year, if not particularly well, but this year, nothing. The cost was very reasonable, so we went to book that on his calendar. Then I remembered to ask about the lift gate. Since we’re going to be hauling a lawn mower in the back of the van, using the nice new ramps my brother bought for us, it would be good to not have a pole in the way. ;-) These aren’t very expensive and don’t take long to install, so that’s going to get done, too.
I also remembered to ask him about the driver’s side door hinge. When we bought the van, the original door would drop when opened, and we would have to lift it to close it. Eventually, the latch on the door snapped. It was actually cheaper to replace the door, and the garage we went to at the time tried to find a second hand one for us, but never did. We spent most of the first year we owned the van with a Bungee cord keeping the door shut. Including the drive across provinces, during the move.
My brother had been able to find a door, but because the driver’s side door has the only key lock, he had to take both of them apart and cobble the two together. The original hinge pins broke in the process, but he’d snagged the ones from the vehicle he had salvaged the door from, so that worked out. The door does, however, still drop ever so slightly, and we don’t want to go through all that again. If we can get it fixed now, before it becomes a problem, that would be good.
The problem is, he would have to take it apart and see, in order to give me an estimate. But there are only two possibilities. One, we need new bushings. Two, they would need to take it apart, precision drill a new opening, and weld things back together.
If it’s one, that’s not a problem.
If it’s two, he basically says it would take so long, it might not be worth it, because it would be really expensive, just in shop equipment fees, never mind the time.
So the bushing kit, which is not very expensive, has been ordered, and he will check it and see. I’ll be dropping the van off on Monday morning, and just hanging out in town until it’s done.
It was a rather short trip into town, but it felt like I’d accomplished quite a bit in the process!
Once at home, we were getting into the hottest part of the day, so we stuck to inside stuff until things started to cool down in the evening. I didn’t even bother unloading the van until then. That wagon we got last month is awesome. I was able to haul the bale of peat and bags of soil, all at once, over to the old garden area. Then I started mowing the old garden area with the push mower.
I am so glad my brother was able to get that thing running for us. There is no way we could do this area with the riding mower. It would break in no time!
Also, that drill attachment sharpener I got for the mower blade has made a huge difference! When I sharpened it yesterday, I found it so bashed up, it was hard to tell which side of the blade was beveled, and which was flat!
I’m also so happy we found that bag attachment for this mower. It isn’t very big, and I had to stop to empty it often, which makes for much slower going. However, I am getting so many grass clippings, I decided to keep mowing into areas I would normally use the riding mower for, just so I could get more!
And since I had all these wonderful grass clippings, I decided to use them to mulch around where we planted the sunflowers.
The areas mulched are two wagon loads of clippings. I stopped after finishing this end of the old garden area, and then had to stop. After two hours, I was pretty knackered!
Also, I really need to remember to keep a water bottle with me when I’m doing this!
Meanwhile, after the girls finished what they were working on inside, they came out to remove the logs that were used to frame the area we chose to mulch last year, and where I am planting the squash this year. They have served their purpose, and now they are starting to be in the way as we go around with wheelbarrows or wagon, hoses and soil mixes.
We will not be able to continue this tomorrow, though. Tomorrow is our day to do the monthly shop in the city.
I am really hoping it goes better than last month. Last time was pretty brutal. :-( Even on a good trip, though, we’re pretty wiped out by the time we get home, unload and put everything away.
As for me, I am done like dinner! Time for a shower and, hopefully, early to bed!
Welcome to my “Recommended” series of posts. These will be weekly – for now – posts about resources and sites I have found over the past while that I found so excellent, I want to share them with you, my dear readers. 🙂 Whether or not I continue to post these, and how often they are posted, will depend on feedback. Please feel free to comment below, and if you have a favorite resource of your own, do share, and I will review them for possible future posts.
I hope you find these recommendations as useful and enjoyable as I have!
You would think that, having grown up on the farm, I wouldn’t need to be looking up all these resources on how to live on a farm! :-D Our situation is very different from how I grew up here, though, since most of the land is rented out, and our focus is on a relatively small portion of 1 quarter, around the house. We aren’t to be the sort of farmers my parents were, so homesteading resources have been more in line with what we are looking to be doing over the next few years.
Unfortunately, I’m not finding a lot of Canadian ones, so there’s quite a lot that just doesn’t apply to us. We don’t have the climate for soil conditions. Which is fine. There is still lots to learn! And a lot of “homesteader” skills can be applied anywhere you live.
Like cooking from scratch. That’s a big one, for me, and these skills kept food on the table during some pretty lean years! It was just what we did, when I was growing up, but I definitely learned to appreciate those skills over the years!
The Prairie Homestead is one of those resources that are quite useful, even for those who live in urban areas. The channel started quite a few years ago, with the first videos going back 8 years, and there were a few time gaps before things got into the groove, to where videos are being posted weekly. The focus now is largely on from scratch cooking, and the site owner has a cook book out as well.
Here, you will find videos on how to make things like butter, broth, pasta and sourdough starter, and even how to render lard.
You’ll find videos on how to start seeds indoors, planting, and preserving food, as well as starting a new garden.
Some of the earliest videos include how to milk goats and cows, and others about livestock care. More recent videos include one on their home schooling routine.
I like the really wide range of topics included in their videos.
They also have Facebook, Instagram and podcasts, as well as web pages.
The Prairie Homestead has sections for from-scratch cooking, starting a home stead, growing food and DIY.
Well, when it came to the mad dash to get the lawn mowing started, it was mosquitoes 0 : rain 1 :-D The bug spray actually worked this time. :-D Thankfully, I didn’t have to charge the battery on the riding mower, and could get started on that right away. I got rained on a bit, but it wasn’t until I was using the push mower to get the edges that the rain started falling heavily enough I had to put the equipment away.
I’m also happy to say that the lawn mower bag we found in the basement and moved to the barn is for this push mower, rather than one of the many broken ones lying about. It’s a rear bag, and normally I would have closed the cover of the side opening, but that wasn’t an option. Someone built a sort of shield of wood that holds the flat up, while also preventing clippings from spraying towards whomever is pushing it, and the shield is bolted to the body of the mower. I don’t mind it being open, since most of the clippings goes into the bag anyhow. I kept the folding wagon close by to empty the bag into, and was able to fill it before I had to stop due to rain. This will make it so much easier to have grass clippings for mulching and composting! :-)
Later in the evening, before I headed outside to do my rounds, I paused to check the indoor plants. Particularly the aloe that has started to bloom.
It had a surprise for me!
Not only has one of the flower spikes reached the ceiling, it’s pressing against it, and looks like it has more growing to do!
Outside, there were more blossoms emerging. The crab apples are starting to bloom.
This is from one of the trees in the West yard.
You can really tell that these ones get more light than the ones planted North of the spruce grove.
Earlier in the month, I had spotted some fungal growth on one of the apple trees by the spruce grove. Now that the leaves are in, I can see that the entire section of that tree is dead. There are still two sections of it growing, and seem to be healthy, so far, so we’ll see how it fares after I remove the dead section. (update: after taking a closer look, the living sections aren’t going that well, after all. :-( )
Of course, I visited the kittens, and got thorough and viciously attacked by little critters!
Big Rig looks even bigger when she’s next to Saffron, who is the teeniest of the bunch.
Now that they’re bigger, and occasionally stay still long enough for me to check, it looks like we’ve got three females and two males. Big Rig, Turmeric and Saffron seem to all be female; it’s a bit surprising, since orange tabbies are usually male. Leyendecker and Nicco both appear to be male. With Leyendecker being black, it’s even harder to tell with him! :-D
If all goes well, tomorrow, I’ll be able to get either the rest of the mowing done, or the rest of the planting done. Maybe even both, weather willing.
I completely forgot about the pumpkin seeds my mother gave me. It’s quite late for direct sowing pumpkins, but I’ll give them a try. Checking the seed trays, some of the gourds are most definitely emerging! After the trays were knocked over, they’re all mixed up, but none of the gourds had sprouted at all yet, so the new ones can’t really be anything else.
I used more of the soil mix for the sunflowers than I expected, so I think I will pick up more, the next time I’m in town. We still need to get those chimney blocks outside, to use as planters for the cucamelon transplants. The plan had been to take them through the new part basement, and up the stronger stairs, but with the kittens down there now, and always under foot, we’ll have to find a way to get them up the more rickety old basement stairs.
Once again, I am thinking of how great it would be to convert the old chimney for the wood burning furnace into a dumbwaiter! :-D
Once the blocks are in place, I plan to fill the bottoms with grass clippings and straw, then top it with a soil mix. With more squash to transplant, I don’t have enough of the soil mix left for it all.
It’s all coming together rather nicely, I think. I look forward to seeing how everything does.
I spoke to my mother today, and was telling her about what we’ve planted and where. Of course, she had to start telling me what I should be planting, none of which is what I am planting. She is currently fixated on onions. I should be planting onions. Also, I should be using the chives (which are coming up nicely) in salads. Also, I need a tiller. Because digging holes for the sunflower seeds is… and she stopped herself before saying it, though I could still here the word “stupid” hanging in the air. :-D I had told her about my wanting to go with no-till methods, and the use of straw, and she told me that she’d never seen anyone do that before. Straw is only for strawberries, not for anything else. It’s rather funny, how she is so convinced that the way she did things is the ONLY way to do things! Nobody else ever did anything different. :-D As for the old garden area, I reminded her of the conversation we’d had about planting trees there, and how we were intending to plant fruit and nut trees. She started telling me I should get hazelnuts from the bush, for free. The problem with that is, I have no memory of where those hazelnuts are. I was little more than a toddler when I went with her to gather nuts. They may not even be there anymore. So many trees and bushes have died, over the years. So she reminded me of one place we know for sure there is a hazelnut bush. The cemetery my father and brother are buried in!
I’m not sure what she expects me to do about that. :-D But hey; at least we are in agreement on the planting of food trees!
All in all, I think it’s been a decently productive day! :-)
I wasn’t able to get decent kitten pictures this morning, so here are some from last night.
I picked up some wet cat food, just for Beep Beep and the kittens, and they were in heaven! Leyendecker is an enthusiastic eater, while the others are still figuring out that whole eating and chewing thing. Once he had his fill, he crawled into my arms and began grooming himself, my arm, licking my fingers, rolling around in my arms and generally being the most adorable thing ever!
Nicco, on the other hand, is more into the water bowl than the solid food thing. He also demanded “up” from my daughter, but once he was there, he wasn’t too sure he liked it!
This morning, I was enthusiastically tackled, climbed and squealed at, by the entire bunch! They definitely enjoy people attention. :-)
While doing my rounds this morning, I started to prep a bit for working on the lawn. With the rain we’ve had, and more to come, soon, there is only a small window to get the job done. Unfortunately, it will be while fighting off squadrons of mosquitoes. The last couple of years were so dry, we didn’t really have a lot of mosquitoes. This year, we have more normal moisture levels, which means we also have more normal mosquito numbers.
The area we are in is infamous for mosquitoes. And wood ticks. I recall, when living in a different province, a co-worker of my husband shared a story. They, too, had moved from another province not long before, with the husband moving ahead to start a new job, and his wife following some time later (we’ve had to do that a few times!). She drove through several provinces. After driving through the province we’re back in now, she said the front end of their white car was black and fuzzy, from all the mosquitoes stuck to it! My husband just nodded and said, yeah. That sounds about right!
So my focus for today is going to involve girding my loins, covering myself in insect repellent, and getting as much of the lawn done as I can before getting driven back indoors by either the bugs, or rain! That includes getting the mowers checked over, making use of that mower blade sharpener I got, and likely needing to charge the battery on the riding mower, first.
It’s not even noon yet, and my day is already completely out of whack! It’s my own fault, too. :-D
My daughter got her new work schedule, which had 1 whole extra shift on it, beyond another month of 1 shift a week.
It was today.
I diligently added it to my calendar, then completely forgot about it until my husband came to me this morning, saying, “So [our daughter] has a shift today, and it’s just after 8…”
Which meant we had to leave in less than half an hour. It took me about that long, just to shift mental gears. LOL If I’d remembered and set my alarm as I normally do when she has a shift, I would have completely finished my rounds and been at my computer, almost finished checking the trail cam files by then.
No worries. My husband had already fed the outside cats, and topped up the food for the inside cats, except Beep Beep and the babies. He can’t do stairs very well, and we’re still keeping the other cats out until the kittens get a bit bigger.
When visiting Beep Beep and the kittens last night, I noticed they weren’t using the crate under the chair that used to be part of their nest. They are really liking the set up on and under the platform bed frame. So I decided to see what would happen if I put the crate on the frame.
This happened.
I barely put it down when Beep Beep jumped right in!
When I visited them this morning, they were all running around so much, I couldn’t get any good pictures.
So here are some crappy ones. :-D
I’m pretty sure this is Turmeric, teething on the basket I made. When the two orange ones aren’t close to each other, it’s kinda hard to remember which is Turmeric and which is Saffron. :-D
I had not intended that basket to be for the kittens, but they really seem to like it!
There were a couple of noticeable achievements this morning. I had already seen Leyendecker, at least, eating the cat kibble. This morning…
… Nicco was figuring out how to drink water from a bowl.
The major achievement (especially after having to clean up a mess on the foam mats we laid out on the concrete for them) is this…
Yes. I took a picture of a kitten taking a dump. But it was in the litter box, not the floor, so this is a milestone! :-D
Anyhow.
I’ll be needing to head into town again a couple more times. I’ll be meeting my daughter for lunch and taking advantage of that to try and find some self-drilling screws my brother is looking for, to use on that trailer frame we now have wheels on and has been sitting in the barn all winter. Then again to pick up my daughter at the end of her shift. So getting more of the squashes transplanted will wait another day. The ones already planted have grown noticeably, as have the carrots in the new garden plot. That’s encouraging, at least. :-) There are plenty of other tasks to do that can handle interruptions.
I’ll just have to remember to use lots of insect repellent before I do anything outside. Aside from the squadrons of mosquitoes, I’ve been seeing lots of wood ticks already. :-( Ah, well. Such is life in the sticks! :-D
